- Published: 18.12.2017.
PM Plenkovic: Croatia and Slovenia have to find middle ground over border dispute
Croatia and Slovenia are in a position in which they have to find a middle ground that will resolve the border issue, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Monday ahead of a visit to Zagreb by his Slovenian counterpart Miro Cerar.
PM Plenkovic added that the ruling handed down this summer by the arbitration tribunal in the Croatian-Slovenian border dispute in fact defined the land border in line "with what the Croatian legal team advocated all the time."
PM Plenkovic and Cerar met on Friday in Brussels and agreed that Cerar would visit Zagreb on Tuesday to discuss a solution for the border row.
"We are now in a position in which we have to find some middle ground that will resolve the border issue. If you look at the actual arbitration decision - I'm not saying that I accept it nor that it has any legal meaning for us, however, when it comes to the land border demarcation, in many aspects it follows the basic principle that the Croatian legal team advocated the entire time and that is the cadastre limits," Plenkovic said at the first convention of the Europa Press Club.
Cerar was supposed to visit Zagreb in September but cancelled his visit after Plenkovic's address to the UN General Assembly in New York when the Croatian PM said that "compromising the impartiality or independence of international adjudicators and tribunals, as was the case in the terminated Arbitration Process between Croatia and Slovenia, makes their decisions legally void and left Croatia with no choice other than to withdraw from the arbitration process."
Cerar then said that he would not visit Zagreb until Croatia agreed to discuss the implementation of the arbitration award of 29 June whereas Croatia reiterated that it did not recognise the decision and that the border row should be solved through bilateral talks.
"It is good that Prime Minister Cerar is coming to Zagreb. That shows maturity, good neighbourly and friendly relations between the two countries," Plenkovic told reporters.
He underscored that Croatia's stance is that at the moment the two countries require permanent talk, dialogue, cooperation without tension, without any unilateral moves and without incidents. "We need to come closer to a common denominator that we can agree on," he said.
PM Plenkovic considers that all questions concerning the border, not just with Slovenia but Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina are more dramatised in public discourse than in real life because, for example, after the arbitration with Slovenia, there is not one house that wishes to remain on the other side of the border.
As far as the sea border in the Bay of Savudrija (Piran Bay) is concerned, there are several aspects, Plenkovic said and underscored that Slovenia did not get what it wanted and that is the so-called "junction" and access to the high seas.
Asked whether access to the Schengen Area depended on the resolution of the Piran/Savudrija bay, and whether Slovenia could block Croatia's access to the Schengen Area until Croatia satisfies Slovenia's demands regarding the border, Plenkovic said that the path to the Schengen Area "is determined by meeting the set criteria."
"A blockade for any reason that is not related to the matter is unacceptable," Plenkovic underscored and added that in the end what is important is to find a long-term solution to the border issue with a final result that has to be the outcome of agreement of the two countries.
Text: Hina