Slovenia's Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec has said that he hopes that all details regarding the dispute with Croatia over the issue of the now-defunct Ljubljanska Banka (LB) will be hammered out before Slovenian and Croatian Prime Ministers, Janez Jansa and Zoran Milanovic, meet on 10 March and that the Slovenian parliament will ratify Croatia's Treaty of Accession to the European Union at a special session after the two premiers meet.
Minister Erjavec said on Tuesday that he was sorry that he had been pulled out of the negotiating process.
Last week, PM Jansa decided to authorise the state-secretary in his office, Ambassador Tone Kajzer, to replace Erjavec in the negotiations with Croatia over the LB issue, explaining that Erjavec was being replaced because of his repeated statements about his party withdrawing from the ruling coalition and vacating his ministerial position, which could jeopardise the negotiations over the said issue.
"Prime Minister Janez Jansa announced on Friday he will meet his Croatian counterpart Zoran Milanović on 10 March to discuss solutions for the issue of the Zagreb branch of the defunct LB bank. He withdrew Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec from the negotiations, arguing that he could jeopardise Slovenia's credibility in the talks," the Slovenian STA news agency reported this past Friday after Jansa unveiled his plan for the continuation of the talks with Zagreb.
Erjavec said today that he and his Croatian counterpart Vesna Pusic should have initialled their deal on the Ljubljanska Banka issue at the meeting that was due to have been held today in Croatia. The scheduled Erjavec-Pusic meeting was cancelled following Jansa's decision to appoint Kajzer instead of Erjavec.
The LB dispute has so far held back the ratification of the Croatia-EU treaty in the Slovenian parliament.
