"Croatia and Slovenia will strengthen their energy cooperation by developing the gas pipeline network, and Zagreb will support Slovenia if it decides to expand the Krsko nuclear power plant, the two countries' prime ministers, Andrej Plenkovic of Croatia and Janez Jansa of Slovenia said in Zagreb on Monday," state agency Hina surmised.

Speaking after their meeting, Jansa said that his government had already decided to expand the nuclear power plant and that the two countries were lucky to already have available space for a new block.

We do not have the kind of difficulties encountered by our colleagues in Europe who are thinking along the same lines, Jansa said.

Plekovic said that the decision to expand the Krsko plant was up to Slovenia but that as a 50% owner of the plant, Croatia was willing to support the investment.

The Croatian PM said the two countries’ energy ministers would next week discuss ways to strengthen the countries’ cooperation in terms of energy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted European energy plans.

He added that Croatia had increased the capacity of its LNG terminal on the island of Krk from 2.6 to 2.9 billion cubic metres of gas, and that experts believed it could be increased to a maximum 3.5 billion cubic metres.

Plenkovic also stressed that the capacity of the existing gas pipelines and interconnections should be increased as well.

Jansa congratulated Croatia on having decided early enough to build the LNG terminal, which, he said, was what other European countries would also now turn to, and for which EU funds would be available.