Slovenian Foreign Minister Erjavec wants to put up border buoys in the Bay of Piran.
On Thursday, the Slovenian government received a detailed presentation of the border with Croatia on the basis of the decision made by the arbitration tribunal, but it will wait with the implementation until it notifies the Parliament and until the six-month deadline expires, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Karl Erjavec said, adding that he proposed that the government should put up buoys in the disputed Bay of Piran according to the arbitration decision, although Croatia refuses to accept it, reports Večernji List on October 10, 2017.
After the session of the government, Erjavec said that the legislation which the Slovenian Parliament needed to adopt in order to prepare for arbitration implementation was ready and that the government was intensively preparing for it.
Apart from legislative preparations, the Prime Minister Cerar's government was also informed about the official translation of the arbitration tribunal’s decision which will be distributed to members of the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, which should soon again discuss the implementation of the arbitration decision and general relations with Croatia, Erjavec announced.
At the closed session of the committee, MPs will be presented with the “visualisation of the arbitration decision” and its translation, in order to get acquainted with everything before they vote for the implementation laws.
“We have difficulties because Croats do not want to participate in the arbitration implementation,” Erjavec said, adding that “Croats are not respecting agreements” and they have open border issues open not just with Slovenia, but also with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Erjavec said there were two factions in the government with regards to the relations with Croatia, and that the Prime Minister’s has prevailed. It advocates for a more moderate approach, despite also insisting on the implementation of the arbitration decision. I am for a stronger position, Erjavec said, adding that he first advocated for the buoys to be put up in the part of the Bay of Piran which belongs to Slovenia according to the arbitration. That would mark the area where Slovenian sovereignty reaches, since the verdict clearly states where the border line should go.
But that was not accepted, the Slovenian Minister said, explaining that the implementation of the verdict would proceed simultaneously on the sea and the land. He added that his statement that Croatia should be blocked in its bid to join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had proven to be successful because Croatia immediately started considering issues connected with the arbitration.
Translated from Večernji List.
