Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday he was "ready to immediately end the stupid practice" of fining Slovenian and Croatian fishermen in Savudrija Bay if an agreement on that was reached with Slovenia.

Speaking to the press after meeting with Slovenian Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon, Plenkovic said Croatia and Slovenia were friends and that “the advancement of those relations is a particularly consistent policy of my government.”

A big step forward in that has been made in the past year, he said. “Yes, we have the unsolved border issue. Slovenia has an anchor called arbitration and Croatia has an anchor in the Croatian parliament’s decision that the arbitration is null and void.”

But that does not mean that “we can’t work on pragmatic issues,” Plenkovic said, citing solutions that would make it possible to stop the fining of fishermen who cross the sea border, which the two countries view differently.

“That’s an unnecessary, pointless and stupid system,” he said. “Because neither are our fishermen paying Slovenian fines nor are Slovenian fishermen paying Croatian fines,” he said, adding that the only ones benefitting are the lawyers representing them.

“It’s a situation I’m ready to end tomorrow if we agree that it should end,” Plenkovic said.