ZAGREB, June 12, 2019 - The Court of Justice of the European Union has scheduled for July 8 a hearing on Slovenia's border arbitration suit against Croatia, Slovenian media reported on Wednesday, citing information on the Court's website.

The hearing will be held before the Grand Chamber. The suit was brought last year by the then Miro Cerar Cabinet. Cerar is now Slovenia's foreign minister.

In the suit, Slovenia demands the Court find that Croatia, by failing to implement the border arbitration award, is violating the EU's fisheries policy, Schengen rules on the movement of people across the border and the directive on a framework for maritime spatial planning.

Croatia announced in 2015 that it was walking out of the border arbitration proceedings after the release of recordings of covert contacts between Simona Drenik, then a representative of Slovenia's Foreign Ministry, and Jernej Sekolec, Slovenia's member of the arbitral tribunal.

Croatia's decision was unanimously upheld by parliament. Since then, Croatian governments have maintained that the arbitration was irreversibly compromised and that the award eventually adopted by the arbiters has no legal effect or consequence.

Slovenia has refused Croatia's proposal to resume talks on the bilateral issue on new grounds to find a mutually acceptable solution, claiming that talks are possible only on the implementation of the arbitration award and that Croatia, by rejecting the award, is breaking European and international law.

More news about the border arbitration issue can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, June 12, 2019 - An oral hearing began at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Wednesday on the admissibility of an application which Slovenia lodged against Croatia in September 2016 over receivables of defunct Ljubljanska Banka's Zagreb branch dating back to the 1980s.

During the hearing, the Grand Chamber must decide whether the Court can rule in this case given that applications against states are rare and it generally admits cases related to human rights violations of individuals or groups of people.

If the Court finds the application admissible, it will decide on the merit of the case and its decision will be final.

Presenting Slovenia's case, the government's high representative on succession issues, Ana Polak Petrić, said that over the past 30 years Ljubljanska Banka's Zagreb branch, despite the numerous proceedings brought in Croatian courts, had been unable to collect receivables dating back to the 1980s.

The receivables mainly refer to corporate loans. Slovenia claims it was defrauded of 429.5 million euro.

The application claims that Croatian authorities systematically intervened in the court proceedings brought by Ljubljanska Banka to prevent the repayment of debts owed by companies such as IPK Osijek and INA.

Slovenia claims that in doing so Croatia violated a number of European Convention on Human Rights provisions which guarantee the right to the use of property, the right to a fair trial and the use of a legal remedy, and the right to equal treatment in court.

Slovenia decided to sue Croatia after the ECHR, in 2015, declared Ljubljanska Banka's case against Croatia inadmissible because the bank was government-controlled.

Croatian Economy Minister Darko Horvat said on Wednesday that whatever the European Court of Human Rights decided on Slovenia's application against Croatia over Ljubljnanska Banka's Yugoslav-era receivables, the decision would not destabilise Croatia's economy.

Speaking to reporters, he recalled the ECHR's earlier decision on the inadmissibility of the defunct Slovenian bank's application against Croatia in the same case.

Horvat said Croatia would honour any decision the court in Strasbourg made and estimated that, if the ECHR ruled that the application was admissible, it would take years before a decision was handed down.

More news about relations between Croatia and Slovenia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, June 10, 2019 - Transport Minister Oleg Butković said on Monday that in order to resolve the problem of Slovenia's cargo transport restriction on 17 smaller border crossings with Croatia, it was proposed to open those crossings only for Croatian and Slovenian hauliers.

He said the proposal was made last week at a meeting with Slovenian Transport Minister Alenka Bratušek. "Croatia isn't against that decision because it's good for safety on state roads in both countries," he told reporters.

Representatives of the two countries' transport ministries will meet on Thursday "to try to formalise everything," he said. "I believe the Slovenian side will agree to that because I think it's good for us and them."

Butković went on to say that he and Bratušek also talked about the renovation of bridges on the border crossings.

On June 1, the Slovenian Transport Ministry introduced on 17 border crossings with Croatia a restriction on cargo vehicles weighing over 7.5 tons, with the explanation that it wanted to improve the safety and quality of life of the local population and was therefore shifting cargo transport from state roads to motorways.

Croatian hauliers believe the restriction is Slovenia's response to the closure of the Mursko Središće border crossing for trucks weighing over 7.5 tons.

The president of the Association of Croatian Road Carriers, Dragutin Kranjčec, said last week they would wait for an answer regarding a solution to the problems caused by the Slovenian restriction and that if none was provided this week, they would take other actions if necessary.

More news about relations between Croatia and Slovenia can be found in the Politics section.

The common index, called Adria Prime, will consist of five Croatian and nine Slovenian companies from the Prime Market.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Tomislav Pili writes on the 2nd of June, 2019, a record number of participants gathered at sixth investment days of the Slovenian and Croatian capital markets, while the most important features of the two markets were presented to foreign investors.

The event was organised by the Ljubljana and Zagreb Stock Exchange(s), and is conceived as a venue for the meeting of Slovenian, Croatian and international investors, as well as eminent issuers from the Zagreb and Ljubljana Stock Exchange(s) with the aim of providing direct contact between companies and investors.

This year, eight Croatian companies participated: AD Plastik, Arena Hospitality Group, Atlantic, Croatian Telecom, Ina, Podravka, Valamar Riviera and the Zagreb Stock Exchange. The Slovenian ''colours'' were represented by seven representatives from Slovenia - Krka, Luka Koper, NLB, Petrol, Pozavarovalnica Sava, Telekom Slovenije and Triglav Group.

28 investment companies and banks participated, representing 63 analysts and investors from European countries including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, as well as from further afield, across the Atlantic from the United States of America.

Investors reported for a record 338 meetings, and companies will hold 255 meetings. As pointed out by the President of the Zagreb Stock Exchange, Ivan Gažić, the goal is to promote ''top-notch'' companies from both markets. As part of this, he announced that on June the 19th, he will begin calculating the Adria Prime index, which will consist of five companies from the Prime Market of the Zagreb Stock Exchange and nine from the Slovenian SBI TOP index. The Slovenian side will not include Mercator or Intereuropa.

Reflecting on the situation on the Slovenian market, the CEO of the Ljubljana Stock Exhange, Aleš Ipavec, said that last year was marked by the departure of Gorenje.

Soon, the Slovenian Government will list another ten percent of the shares of the bank on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange, and Ipavec expressed the hope that several more companies will be available on the stock exchange during this year and next year.

Tea Pevec, director of research at Interkapital Securities, and Davor Špoljar, senior analyst of the capital market at Erste Bank, spoke about the prospects of the Slovenian and Croatian markets. In terms of the view of the Slovenian market, Pevec started with a macroeconomic review, pointing out that the Slovenian economy has experienced impressive GDP growth over the last two years, which was four percent above the European average.

Growth is also expected for this year and for next year, primarily due to the slowdown in exports to leading foreign trade partners, notably Germany. Regarding the inflation rate in Slovenia, it is comparable to that of the EU, Pevec pointed out.

She also emphasised the dynamics of Slovenia's declining public debt, which was also positively influenced by the growth of the economy, and predicted that by 2021, Slovenia's public debt would fall to 60 percent of GDP.

The Slovenian capital market is larger than the Croatian, Serbian and Bulgarian markets, and in the last five years, the SBI TOP index has grown by a significant eighteen percent, which is more than the average of fourteen percent of the comparable markets.

Croatia's Davor Špoljar pointed out that the crisis in Agrokor (now Fortenova) halted Croatia's market recovery, but the Croatian tourism sector has fared well in terms of the best stock market result. He also stressed that the market structure has changed over the last five years. While five years ago tourist shares held a mere two percent of the share of such ''traffic'', they now account for a massive thorty percent.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business page for much more.

May 21, 2019 - Looking to walk into Europe without having to deal with barbed wire challenges? Meet the Slovenian crossing with Croatia where the unguarded gate is conveniently left open.  

It is a border which has become increasingly contentious in recent years. The arbitration process between Croatia and Slovenia in the bay of Piran was a dispute dating back to the break up of former Yugoslavia, but the migrant crisis has put increasing pressure on the border between the two countries in recent years. 

Slovenia's decision to erect barbed wire along much of its border with Croatia in 2015 in order to stem the tide of migrants met with protests, and even a game of volleyball between the two counties, with the wire as the net. 

The wire remains. The first line of defence for Schengen countries to keep out illegal and unwanted arrivals from Fortress Europe. 

So it was a little bit of a surprise yesterday when I went to a particular part of the border for a totally different story I was working on, only to find this. 

The road was blocked by a fence. The barbed wire was in place. But the gate was open. 

And there was no police presence either side of the border. While it was not possible to drive through this crossing, there was plenty of room for people on foot. Walk on just 10 metres to the main road, and you were free to explore Slovenia. There were absolutely no checks. 

The view from the Slovenian side. 

The story I had come to do was about this restaurant, which I had read was located half in Croatia and half in Slovenia. One of the victims of the break-up of former Yugoslavia, the border ran through the middle of the restaurant. This gave the Kalin Tavern near Bregana a certain notoriety, and it appeared in the international media on several occasions. Here is a more sobering assessment of the fate of the restaurant in the AP video below.

Although the restaurant itself was located in two countries, access was only from the Slovenian side. As The Daily Beast reported back in 2014:

As I arrive, I notice a string of cement flowerpots blocking the road right outside the tavern. Apparently, these were put in place shortly after the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991 to prohibit the passage of cars over the border. Unable to resist, I walk over to the flowerpot-barricade and stretch one leg over onto Croatian soil. As if on cue, a yellow light turns on inside a small guardhouse about a hundred feet away on the Croatian side, and a border guard starts to make his way down to the barricade in the rain. I feel like I am in a John Le Carré novel and scurry into the tavern in hopes of avoiding an “international incident.”

That was then. The situation yesterday was as follows:

The concrete blocks have gone, the restaurant has been closed for a couple of years due to lack of business caused by the border (locals told me most of the guests were from Croatia). In place of the concrete blocks, the fence with barbed with is in place. The checkpoint on the Croatian side is totally unmanned and looks as though it has not been used for some time. 

And the gate is open, leaving anyone who wants to walk into the Schengen zone with the perfect opportunity. 

I asked some locals how this was possible. I was told by more than one that the gate is left open for locals to pass through (which makes sense), and that it is closed at 10pm each night.

Border control? They laughed. The crossing is manned in the season, but not now. The Slovenians have cameras, say the Croatian locals, and the fine for entering without permission is 400 euros. There is no control, according to the same local sources, on the Croatian side. 

An open entry to the Schengen zone. 

I drove on to my appointment in Slovenia, crossing at another border further south. At the passport control, I explained the situation to the Croatian border guard.

"It shouldn't be like that."

Well, as these pictures show, it is.  

I did call the Ministry of Interior this afternoon to point out the problem, but there was no answer. My experience of dealing with Croatian institutions is that action comes quicker once the problem hits the Internet. 

Looking to cross legally from Croatia to Slovenia? Here is the complete Total Croatia guide. 

ZAGREB, April 24, 2019 - In the last five days, 111 illegal migrants have been detained in Slovenia after illegally entering the country from Croatia, Slovenian police said on Tuesday.

Thirty migrants have been returned to Croatia as part of the readmission process, 12 have applied for asylum in Slovenia, while procedures for the rest have not been completed yet.

Most of the migrants were caught in areas covered by the police departments of Novo Mesto, Celje and Koper.

Among 67 foreign nationals who crossed the border illegally at Novo Mesto, 25 were from Morocco, 11 from Algeria and 11 from Bangladesh.

A 37-year-old man, resident in Great Britain, was arrested at Novo Mesto on Monday for driving four illegal migrants from Egypt in a car with Slovenian licence plates. The driver will be prosecuted, while the four migrants have been returned to Croatia.

In and around the coastal city of Koper, 37 illegal migrants have been detained, 24 of whom have been sent back to Croatia, while the rest have applied for international protection. They are nationals of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Kosovo, Bangladesh, India, Albania and Libya.

Police in Celje on Saturday detained three Kosovo nationals after discovering they had entered the border illegally from Croatia. They have been handed over to Croatian police.

More news about migrant crisis can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 11, 2019 - The European Commission on Wednesday declined to comment on Slovenian media reports saying that the Croatian Security-Intelligence Agency (SOA) had wiretapped conversations between Slovenian officials.

EC spokesman Margaritis Schinas told Slovenian reporters that the EC had seen the media reports but did not wish to comment as the matter was a bilateral one and the EC was not familiar with it and had no details about it.

National intelligence services and related questions fall within national jurisdiction and it is up to member-states to control their services, Schinas said, adding that the EC did not have intelligence services or spies and was not concerned with intelligence matters.

Asked about the alleged attempt by the Croatian government to prevent media reporting about the case, Schinas said the EC supported media freedoms and pluralism within the scope of its jurisdiction. The responsibility to protect media freedoms and pluralism in line with European values rests primarily with member-states, he said.

Asked if EC President Jean-Claude Juncker would discuss the matter with the prime ministers of the two countries, Schinas said that he did not believe the matter would be discussed.

The Croatian government and SOA have dismissed allegations of involvement in attempts to influence Slovenian media or in the wiretapping of conversations between Slovenian officials.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković confirmed on Thursday morning that he had briefly met with his Slovenian counterpart Marjan Šarec on the margins of an EU summit in Brussels, saying that he would like the two countries to resolve their problems at the negotiating table.

Asked if they discussed Slovenia's criticism of Croatia over the rule of law, Plenković said that there was nothing new about it. "This is a continuing rhetoric. I would like Croatia and Slovenia to sit down at the table and resolve their problems. We are looking forward to Prime Minister Šarec coming to Dubrovnik today for the China+16 summit when we will talk again."

Slovenia has accused Croatia and its intelligence service of wiretapping its officials and of an attempt to interfere with Slovenian media to get them not to report about it.

"There's no big drama about it and it's nothing new. The European elections are coming up and everyone needs a little topic to show that they are protecting their national interests," the Croatian Prime Minister said.

More news about the border issue between Croatia and Slovenia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 10, 2019 - Slovenia's National Security Council, which convened on Tuesday evening to discuss "the espionage affair", called on Croatia to refrain in the future from spying activities in Slovenia.

After the three-hour meeting in Ljubljana, the council said that it had been informed of spying activities during the border arbitration process a few years ago and also condemned any attempt aimed at interfering at Slovenian media.

Lately, Slovenian media accused the Croatian Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) of having wiretapped two Slovenian officials during a border arbitration process and claimed that Ivan Tolj, the head of the Styria publishing company in Croatia, attempted to prevent the publication of a reportage on a "spy affair" on behalf of the Croatian government.

Tuesday's meeting of Slovenia's National Security Council brought together Prime Minister Marjan Šarec, government ministers as well as representatives of opposition parties.

A representative of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), Božidar Breznik, told the press after the meeting that he condemned the unjustified interference with media and added that nevertheless, the Slovenian government must accept the fact that the border arbitration belonged to the past. He said that it seemed to him that convening the council was more motivated by daily political reasons than by matters concerning national security.

The Croatian government on Tuesday resolutely rejected all allegations by Ljubljana about reported attempts by Zagreb to influence the work of Slovenian media.

The Andrej Plenković cabinet dismissed allegations that Tolj attempted to prevent the publication of a reportage on a "spy affair" as its mediator.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said that it is not his government's policy to influence reports by Slovenian media outlets. "The Croatian government does not have the possibility nor the ambition nor is it our policy to influence any reports in Slovenian media," he told reporters at Zagreb's airport where he was waiting to welcome Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang.

"The arbitration procedure was irrevocably compromised because of the conduct by the Slovenian side," Plenković said. He added that Croatia wishes "to develop good relations with Slovenia and to resolve that issue. Our policy is a policy of dialogue."

Earlier on Tuesday, SOA dismissed reports published by the Slovenian 24ur media outlet as untrue and tendentious fabrications.

Following an inquiry from Hina, SOA says that it does not comment on media speculations and, responding to the inquiry, it stated that the articles published by 24ur were untrue and tendentious fabrications.

SOA perceives this as the continuation of a campaign by certain media outlets in Bosnia and Herzegovina which tried to discredit SOA and Croatia by disseminating false accusations about the attempted recruiting of Islamist extremists for arms smuggling through Bosnia and Herzegovina and unlawful activities which SOA allegedly conducted against neighbouring countries.

The failure of the Croatian-Slovenian border arbitration process is a judicial scandal, not an intelligence issue, and we reject this attempt to misrepresent arguments, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović's office said on Tuesday, responding to Slovenia's claims that Croatia wiretapped Slovenian officials in the process in order to compromise it.

"The fact is that Slovenia breached the arbitration agreement and thereby international law, which resulted in the failure of the arbitration. That is a judicial scandal, not an intelligence issue, and we reject this attempt to misrepresent arguments," the president's office said in response to questions from the press for a comment.

In July 2015, it was revealed that the Slovenian member of the Arbitral Tribunal, Jernej Sekolec, and Slovenia's representative before the Tribunal, Simona Drenik, had been lobbying other arbiters to hand down a verdict in Slovenia's favour, and this prompted Croatia's representative in the process, Budislav Vukas, to resign with the explanation that Croatia believed that the arbitration procedure had been irreversibly compromised to such an extent that the Arbitral Tribunal was no longer capable of impartially deciding on the matter.

Later that year, the Croatian parliament unanimously decided that Croatia should walk out of international arbitration proceedings with Slovenia after secret phone conversations between Drenik and Sekolec, in which they discussed a strategy to influence judges deciding on the arbitration dispute, were leaked.

Croatia said at the time that Slovenia had irreparably compromised the arbitration proceedings as well as the subsequent ruling, and that talks should be launched to solve the border dispute bilaterally.

More news about the Croatia-Slovenia border issues can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 9, 2019 - The Croatian government on Tuesday resolutely rejected all allegations by Ljubljana about reported attempts by Zagreb to influence the work of Slovenian media. The Andrej Plenkovič cabinet dismissed allegations that Ivan Tolj, the head of the Styria publishing company in Croatia, attempted to prevent the publication of a reportage on a "spying affair" on behalf of the Croatian government.

Slovenian media accused the Croatian Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) of having wiretapped two Slovenian officials during a border arbitration process and claimed that Tolj was a government mediator in a bid to halt the publication of the reportage on the spy scandal by Slovenian media outlets.

The Croatian Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) on Tuesday also dismissed reports published by the Slovenian 24ur media outlet as untrue and tendentious fabrications.

Slovenia media accused SOA of having wiretapped two Slovenian officials during a border arbitration process and claimed that Ivan Tolj, the head of the Styria publishing company in Croatia, had tried to prevent the publication of a reportage on the affair.

Following an inquiry from Hina, SOA says that it does not comment on media speculations and, responding to the inquiry, it stated that the articles published by 24ur were untrue and tendentious fabrications.

SOA perceives this as the continuation of a campaign by certain media outlets in Bosnia and Herzegovina which tried to discredit SOA and Croatia by disseminating false accusations about the attempted recruiting of Islamist extremists for arms smuggling through Bosnia and Herzegovina and unlawful activities which SOA allegedly conducted against neighbouring countries.

More news about relations between Croatia and Slovenia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 9, 2019 - Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Šarec has called for Tuesday afternoon an emergency session of the National Security Council over alleged activity by Croatia's Security-Intelligence Agency (SOA) in Slovenia.

The Croatian ambassador to Slovenia was summoned by the Slovenian Foreign Ministry and the Slovenian ambassador to Croatia was called back to Ljubljana for consultation, the Slovenian STA news agency reported.

After Šarec earlier said that he was concerned about Croatia's conduct because SOA had allegedly wiretapped conversations between the former Slovenian arbiter in Croatian-Slovenian border arbitration proceedings, Jernej Sekolec, and Slovenian official Simona Drenik in order to discredit the arbitration process, the affair escalated on Monday following claims on the Slovenian POP TV station that Croatian government mediator Ivan Tolj, the head of the Styria publishing company in Croatia, had tried to prevent the publication of a reportage on the wiretapping affair.

This prompted the Social Democrats (SD), a member of the Slovenian coalition government, to demand an urgent session of the Slovenian National Security Council, which Šarec accepted.

It was previously reported that Croatia's Ambassador to Slovenia, Boris Grgić, was summoned by the Slovenian Foreign Ministry over the affair and that Slovenia's Ambassador to Zagreb, Smiljana Knez, was called back by Ljubljana for consultation.

Šarec's office said that the Slovenian prime minister "is concerned about an attempt by Croatian representatives to influence the reporting of POP TV about activities of the Croatian intelligence service" and that these "serious allegations" required "appropriate explanations".

Such media pressure is "unacceptable and contrary to basic principles of democracy", Šarec's office said.

POP TV on Monday published a recording which it claims shows that Ivan Tolj, Styria's representative for Croatia, tried to stop the broadcast of the TV station's report about the involvement of Croatian intelligence agents in the wiretapping of conversations between Slovenian officials and judges with the aim of compromising the border arbitration proceedings and the subsequent arbitration ruling, which Croatia does not recognise.

More news about relations between Croatia and Slovenia can be found in the Politics section.