Border disputes will be resolved by the court in The Hague

An agreement has been reached between Croatia and Slovenia to resolve disputed border issues before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, for which Prime Ministers Ivo Sanader and Janez Janša will seek to achieve the broadest possible consensus among political entities in Croatia and Slovenia, and the legal framework for submitting the dispute to the ICJ, which will be worked on by two mixed commissions and which will also need to be approved by the parliaments of both countries, could be completed by the end of this year.

This is the result of one-and-a-half hours of talks between Prime Ministers Sanader and Janša ahead of the start of today’s Bled Strategic Forum. The talks also involved State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Hido Biščević, and Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel. As Prime Minister Sanader emphasized in a statement to reporters after the meeting, he came to the talks with his Slovenian counterpart with a mandate from all political parties in Croatia, and it was agreed that the disputed border issues would be resolved before the ICJ in The Hague, while other open issues would be resolved bilaterally, with a continuation of dialogue at the ministerial level.

Regarding the border, Sanader stated that the prime ministers agreed to refer this issue to the ICJ. The framework for resolving this issue before the international court will be established by two mixed intergovernmental commissions. The work of the mixed diplomatic commission, which operated in the 1990s and identified unaligned border points on land, will be renewed, and a list of disputed land points will be compiled, and since there is no agreement between the two countries regarding the maritime border either, those issues would then be brought before the ICJ.

The second mixed commission, according to Prime Minister Sanader, would establish the legal framework on which the ICJ would deliberate and make a decision that would, as he emphasized, thereafter be binding for both parties. “Croatia and Slovenia are two friendly countries, and Croats and Slovenes are two friendly peoples, and a few open issues cannot jeopardize all that connects us,” emphasized Prime Minister Sanader. He also pointed out that regarding the way of resolving open issues with Slovenia, he received a mandate from political parties because these are issues where “the mutual rivalry of parties ends,” thus showing maturity ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections and allowing these issues to be resolved in agreement with the Slovenian side.

“I do not want to be either an optimist or a pessimist, but a realist. This could be a path to a solution,” Sanader told reporters regarding the conversation with the Slovenian Prime Minister at the Zlatorog villa in Bled ahead of the start of the international conference “Europe 2020 – united and unique,” which discusses Slovenian priorities for the EU presidency in the first half of next year. Sanader emphasized that issues with Slovenia are not resolved in a package and through concessions, and when asked whether the ZERP would begin to be implemented at the beginning of next year, he stated that Croatia is discussing the protection of the Adriatic with Italy and Slovenia in accordance with European practice. “I hope for a good outcome of the talks that are still ongoing,” said Sanader.

“There has been a significant rapprochement of positions on how to resolve the border issue,” said Janez Janša to reporters after the meeting with Sanader, confirming that at this level there has been agreement to bring the disputed border issue before the ICJ, while other issues will be resolved bilaterally, at the ministerial level and “without concessions,” meaning that one issue will not be linked to concessions on another issue. “There is currently a general informal agreement at this level to refer the border issue to the ICJ,” Janša said, expressing the expectation that the two mixed intergovernmental commissions could create the legal framework for submitting the border issue to the court by the end of this year. He reiterated that the parliaments on both sides will decide on the legal framework for this, and that it is necessary to ensure consensus among “political entities” for the agreement to succeed, alluding to the unpleasant experience for the Slovenian side with the Drnovšek-Račan agreement, when there was no such consensus on the Croatian side.

“Both sides want broad political support, which is a guarantee that this approach would be successful and that things do not fall through,” Janša emphasized. He pointed out that the agreement to submit the border dispute to the ICJ is based on the state of affairs as of June 25, 1991. Prime Minister Ivo Sanader emphasized that it is also based on the Badinter principle that with the independence of states in the former SFRY, the borders among the republics became state borders. (Hina)