The border arbitration agreement will continue to be "the anchor of Slovenia's policy towards Croatia," Robert Golob, whose party won the relative majority in Slovenia's Sunday election, said on Tuesday. Pročitaj više

Golob met with Slovenia’s President Borut Pahor today and they agreed that the new government could start operating already in early June “in order to quickly prepare for structural changes” that need to be ready for the autumn, Croatian state agency Hina said, without clarifying.

“Given that after the meeting with the future prime minister Pahor is set to travel to Zagreb to meet with Croatia’s President Zoran Milanovic, reporters wanted to know about the future government’s policy toward Croatia, considering that Golob’s position on the unresolved border dispute with Croatia is different from that of outgoing prime minister Janez Jansa,” Hina said. Hina did not explain what Jansa’s position on the border dispute was or how is Golob’s any different.

“The only thing we can say is that we will not act like the outgoing government and that we will not go solo,” said Golob, without clarifying. “That will not be the policy of just one person or the government. We will seek a broader consensus in the parliament and within the future coalition,” said Golob and added that it was therefore “perhaps too early to speak about it.”

“One thing is for certain though, the arbitration agreement will continue to be a firm anchor we will not give up on,” said Golob. Hina did not clarify what this might mean, but presumably this indicates that Golob is determined to stick with Slovenia’s position of insisting on the implementation of a 2017 arbitration ruling.

Croatia and Slovenia share a decades-long border dispute, which involves both land border and maritime border line in the Bay of Piran. An international arbitration to resolve the dispute was launched years ago, only to be abandoned by Croatia which called the process “contaminated” after it was discovered that Slovenia’s representative had violated the rules by lobbying with arbiters.

Even though everyone involved was later replaced and the arbitration reached a conclusion determining the border line in June 2017, successive Croatian governments continued to ignore the “contaminated” arbitration ruling, while Slovenia considers the dispute resolved and sees Croatia’s refusal to accept it as a case of violation of international law.