In Bled, a two-day international conference dedicated to the priorities of the European Union in the first half of next year begins this afternoon, during which Slovenia will preside over this integration. However, the greatest attention of the Slovenian media is drawn to the announced meeting between the Croatian and Slovenian Prime Ministers, ahead of the conference’s start.
The conference will focus on topics such as the expansion and deepening of integration, the role of the EU as a global actor in world politics, climate change, and similar issues. A few hours before the conference begins, at 14:30 in the Zlatorog villa in Bled, a meeting will commence between Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša, along with delegations from both governments, where open inter-state issues will be discussed.
According to Slovenian media reports, the meeting between Prime Ministers Sanader and Janša comes after intense diplomatic activities and exchanges of views on open issues in recent times, and there are expectations in both countries for progress in resolving them, as they have remained unresolved for 16 years, leaving a “bitter taste” in the relations between the two countries. Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, who will also participate in the discussions of the government delegations, assessed on Saturday that solutions for the open questions existing between Slovenia and Croatia can be found “relatively quickly”. As reported by Slovenian media, Rupel commented on the upcoming meeting of Janša and Sanader at a press conference of the Center for European Perspective of the Slovenian government, one of the organizers of the Bled conference, stating that solutions for all open questions with Croatia can indeed be found relatively quickly. When asked whether an agreement on a “third party” necessary for resolving border issues could be expected at the meeting, Rupel optimistically assessed that an agreement is possible, but such forecasts carry risks, reported the Slovenian news agency STA.
