The European Commission is confident that Croatia's European Union Accession Treaty will be ratified in time and believes the Ljubljanska Banka issue is not a matter of the accession process, Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele's spokesman Peter Stano said on Monday.
The Commission continues to encourage Croatia and Slovenia to seek a solution to the bank issue acceptable to both sides. The Commission believes all member countries will ratify the Accession Treaty they signed on December 9 in time so that Croatia can join on 1 July 2013, said Stano.
He said the issue of the now-defunct Slovenian bank's debt to Croatian depositors was not an enlargement matter.
But it's important the two countries solve this important issue which also has multilateral implications because of the other successors to the former Yugoslavia, said Stano.
