Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusic in Brussels on Monday held talks with her Slovenian counterpart Karl Erjavec about the possibility for the two countries to define the subject of a dispute to be decided on by an international arbitral tribunal.
"As far as the arbitration is concerned, we agreed that the steps taken so far have been successful. As you may know, Croatia and Slovenia have 12 months, together or on their own, to define items to be discussed and decided on by the arbitral tribunal. We talked about the possibility to make this step together after we successfully made the first step concerning the forming of the arbitral tribunal. We'll see how it goes," said Pusic, who met Erjavec before a meeting of the EU foreign ministers.
Pusic said the talks also focused on the possibility to renew the work of a commission dealing with outstanding issues. Such a commission existed and convened three times in 2010, after which it never convened again.
The Slovenian Foreign Ministry issued a press release after the Pusic-Erjavec meeting, saying that Slovenia expressed interest in further strengthening the good-neighbourly and friendly relations which the two countries have developed after signing the arbitration deal.
The statement also said that the new Slovenian government would honor the arbitration agreement signed by the previous government, adding that there should be no difficulties with the ratification of Croatia's EU Accession Treaty in the Slovenian parliament.
