Slovenian PM: Probability of Solution is Falling

The president of the Slovenian cabinet, Borut Pahor, said on Monday that his call to his Croatian colleague Ivo Sanader for a meeting is still valid, which should remove some reserve that led to the blockade of the accession negotiations with the EU, and that there is less and less time to solve it before the accession conference of the Czech presidency.

“Maybe we ran out of time with the French presidency of the EU, and if that is correct, the same must not happen to us with the Czech presidency. Every day that passes with the complication unsolved, reduces the probability that there will be a solution at the first accession conference that the Czech presidency is preparing” said Pahor to the press.

Pahor said that after the ceremony of handing out awards for the newspaper “Delo” to the athlete Primoza Kozmus, who won a gold medal in hammer throwing at the Olympic Games in Beijing, and was declared person of the year in 2008.

Commenting relations with Croatia and the possibility that his cabinet pulls its reserves and gives the green light to the continuation of Croatian accession negotiations with the EU during the Czech presidency, Pahor said that it will not happen if the circumstances do not change which led to the blockade during the French presidency of the EU.

European Commission voiced regret

At the accession conference under the French presidency at the end of last year, Slovenia blocked the opening or closing of 11 negotiating chapters, saying that in those chapters, via documentation supplied or the laws relating to those chapters, the Croatian border with Slovenia is being defined.

The European Commission voiced regret because of that stance by Slovenia, which did not accept the compromise of the text statement that the French EU presidency tried to remove Slovenia’s reserve’s with, and speed up the accession negotiations with Croatia.

Pahor’s cabinet said on various occasions that they seek that Croatia pull back the disputed documentation or gives legal guarantees that the documentation that relates to the borders will not be used in the negotiations with the EU, during arbitration or a court procedure on the disputed border issues with Slovenia.

On Monday, Pahor told the press that his cabinet will prepare a declaration on solving the border dispute with Croatia, as was agreed at the meeting of political parties in the second half of December last year. The parties agreed that they should block Croatia in its accession negotiations until they fulfil the conditions that Pahor set.

After accepting the proposed resolution, the cabinet will send it to parliament, announced Borut Pahor.