Slowenien hebt Veto gegen Kroatiens EU-Verhandlungen auf [en] 

During the French EU Presidency, Slovenia blocked the opening of negotiating chapters with Zagreb over Crotia's EU accession due to an unresolved border dispute (EurActiv 18/12/08). Overall, Ljubljana prevented nine negotiating chapters from being opened and five from being closed. 

The subsequent Czech EU Presidency failed to make any progress in the negotiations. In the meantime, hopes have died for Croatia's objective of wrapping up accession talks by the end of the year with the aim of joining the bloc in 2010. 

The border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia concerns small pockets of land along the Adriatic coast, which could prove important if accompanied by exclusive access rights to deep-sea zones. 

A huge mediation effort from the Union was abandoned last June (EurActiv 15/06/09). The beginning of the Swedish Presidency marked a toughening in the EU's mediation efforts, as Sweden stated that it would not engage in solving bilateral problems, including the Croatia-Slovenia border dispute (EurActiv 23/06/09). 

On 11 September, Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor and her Slovene counterpart Borut Pahor announced that the border dispute should not constitute an obstacle to proceeding with Croatia's EU accession negotiations (EurActiv 11/09/09). 

Pahor said the negotiations on the settlement of the border dispute would resume - from the point at which they were interrupted on 15 June - when Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn's latest proposal was on the table. 

The parliamentary committee on EU affairs in Ljubljana voted unanimously on Tuesday (29 September) in favour of lifting the veto, the Croatian news agency Hina reported. 

The move follows a decision by the two countries' prime ministers, who recently said the border dispute that had poisoned their relations should not present an obstacle to proceeding with Croatia's EU accession negotiations.

Matijaz Franges, a member of the ruling Social Democratic Party who chaired the parliamentary committee session, said Slovenia would adopt unilateral declarations on the border dispute in order to protect its interests. 

In the meantime, Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor briefed party leaders about the recent agreement struck with his Croatian colleague Jadranka Kosor, asking for their support for future talks on settling the border dispute by arbitration. 

Pahor said the draft arbitration agreement was based on a proposal for settling the dispute tabled by EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, which he said mentioned Slovenia's access to the high seas. 

That provision is a "key article" for Slovenia, as access to the high seas "was and remains sacred," he said. 

Pahor added that he was optimistic and that his cabinet was willing to accept the risk of arbitration. He added that the arbitration agreement would have to be approved by the Slovenian and Croatian parliaments. 

Croatian law expert Dr. Davor Vidas told the Hina news agency that a Slovenian territorial connection with the open sea, no matter whether it was called the "exit", "contact" or "socket", would be in direct violation of international law. 

Vidas claims that Slovenia has a right of access to the open seas, but not access to the territorial sea, which according to international law, is achieved through the possession of territorial waters below the width of 12 nautical miles. 

Slovenia cannot be territorially connected to the open sea without violating the international law, Vidas argues. He explains that the only way that this can happen is if Croatia decides to give up some territorial sea. But Croatia is not able to change this directly, as it would have to do so with the agreement of the international community. That basically means that Croatian territorial waters would have to be transformed into open seas, which would lead to Croatia's loss of coastal territory, according to the expert.