The Slovenian government decided on Friday to immediately file a lawsuit against Croatia over its refusal to implement the border arbitration ruling, the caretaker government, led by Prime Minister Miro Cerar, said on Friday.
“The government has accepted the final version of the lawsuit which it will, in line with today’s decision, immediately hand over to the EU Court (of Justice) in Luxembourg,” Slovenian government said in a press release.
The lawsuit will be filed over Croatia’s refusal to fulfil its obligations based on Article 259 of the Lisbon Treaty, which states that a EU member state may bring forward a lawsuit against another member before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in case of an alleged infringement of an obligation.
Slovenia and Croatia had presented their cases before the European Commission (EC) in May this year, and the EC decided in mid-June to remain neutral in the matter and allow the countries to resolve the issue between themselves.
Slovenia is claiming that Croatia is in breach of EU law by refusing to implement the arbitration ruling determining the land and sea borders between the two countries, which was reached in June 2017.
Croatia does not recognise the arbitration decision and has withdrawn from the process in 2015 because of a scandal which involved leaked tapes showing Slovenian government official discussing the case with the court’s judge.
Caretaker Prime Minister Cerar has repeatedly said over the last few weeks that, in spite of the fact that the caretaker government only deals with daily issues, it has full authority to file the lawsuit which received unanimous support by all the parties in parliament when it was presented to them at the closed session of the foreign policy committee.
Cerar added he allowed for the possibility that the lawsuit would be retracted if Croatia accepted the arbitration ruling in the meantime.
Slovenian President Borut Pahor and Janez Jansa, whom the president nominated as prime-minister designate on Thursday after Jansa’s party won 25 seats in the 90-seat parliament in an early election in June, both said that the decision on filing the lawsuit should wait until the new government is formed.
According to Pahor, the arbitration ruling is legally binding and Croatia will have to accept it sooner or later, but the lawsuit should wait, because the new government would have the opportunity to discuss the ruling with Croatia once more, not its content, but only its implementation.
Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.
