The foreign ministers of Croatia, Italy, and Slovenia met on Wednesday at Brdo Pri Kranju in Slovenia to sign a joint statement on ecological protection and sustainable development in northern Adriatic.

Foreign Minister of Slovenia, Anze Logar, told reporters after the meeting that together with his counterparts – Gordan Grlic-Radman of Croatia and Luigi di Maio of Italy –  have “endorsed conclusions on strengthening the three countries’ cooperation in the protection of the Adriatic,” which he said was “the basic framework for strengthening cooperation in areas of common interest.”

Last year Croatia and Italy announced they would each proclaim exclusive economic zones in the Adriatic, and included Slovenia in talks about that opic. Slovenia, which does have access to the Adriatic Sea but under international law does not have the right to do the same, hailed this as a “positive move” by its two neighbors, Croatian state agency Hina reported.

In February, Croatian Parliament passed new legislation expanding on the 2003 maritime protection zone law, giving Croatia rights to build artificial islands in the Adriatic and also engage in harnessing the sea, wind, and sea currents in that zone.

At a meeting in Trieste in December last year, the three ministers agreed on a joint statement in which they said they shared “a vision of the sea as a bridge uniting all the peoples in this area and a source of progress for all.” They also agreed that the Adriatic, which is a somewhat closed off sea with intensive traffic and a vulnerable eco-system, needs “an integrated approach to environmental protection and sustainable development.”