The Slovenian parliament, meeting in an extraordinary closed-door session on Monday, approved an arbitration brief presenting the Slovenian case in a border dispute with Croatia, Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec announced after the meeting.
The document was approved in the form presented by the Foreign Ministry with 70 votes in favour, while only several MPs from the People's Party (SLS) voted against, according to STA news agency. It is to be sent to the arbitration tribunal shortly.
Erjavec said he was pleased that the document was backed by a two-thirds majority.
Prime Minister Janez Jansa also expressed his satisfaction, saying that Slovenia had now used the maximum room for manoeuvre provided by the arbitration agreement. He added that by supporting the additional positions the parliament strengthened the Slovenian position in the arbitration.
The parliament also adopted a special statement expressing Slovenia's expectations from the arbitration tribunal. The statement says that Slovenia expects the arbitration tribunal to confirm a territorial junction of its territorial waters with international waters since it had such a junction at the time it declared independence in the early 1990s. If this is not confirmed by arbitration, Slovenia will consider that the arbitration tribunal has failed to carry out its mandate that follows from some of the points of the arbitration agreement.
Slovenian media mainly said that the statement was without any actual effect, adopted only to defuse rows between main political actors that even threatened a possibility of Slovenia requesting a postponement of the deadline for the submission of the brief, which expires next Monday.
