Brussels, 17/12/2008 (Agence Europe) - The dispute between Slovenia and Croatia on their maritime and land borders is seriously slowing down Croatia's European Union accession negotiations. According to an indicative roadmap presented by the European Commission last November, the countries should normally be expected to close accession talks by the end of 2009 but this deadline is at risk of becoming untenable if the border dispute with Slovenia is not rapidly resolved or at least put outside the accession negotiations framework (as the EU is in fact requesting and which it believes is a purely bilateral matter). Another EU-Croatia ministerial accession conference will take place on Friday 19 December in Brussels. Around ten chapters are, technically, ready to be opened and four to five of them should be closed but Slovenia is opposed to the EU making this important step on Friday (all EU enlargement decisions are made by unanimity). On Wednesday 17 December, the Slovenian prime minister, Borut Pahor, announced that his country was maintaining its veto on several chapters because “the documents presented by Croatia (as part of the accession negotiations) could prejudice the outline of the common border” between the two countries. The Slovenian authorities say that their country is robustly contesting the land and maritime border as negotiated by the Croats in Brussels. The French Presidency of the Council of the EU has recently attempted to get the two sides to agree in a written declaration in which Croatia would give guarantees that documents submitted to the accession negotiations do not affect how the border problem is settled in the future in any way. The Croatian government has even published a unilateral declaration in this connection.
Croatian assurances, however, have not yet satisfied the Slovenians. One Slovenian source said: “We would like to have a strong political and legal commitment that all documents produced by Croatia in the accession conference cannot be used to prejudice the border when we go before international arbitrage”. The same source added that the experience Slovenia had had in the past with Croatia demonstrated that respect for certain commitments “is not very good” (reference in particular to the famous ecological and fisheries protection zone in the Adriatic that Croatia in 2004 had promised not to extend to Slovenia and other EU member states, before they actually tried to extend it at the beginning of this year). This source explained that “this is why we would like things to be very, very clear this time”. The Croatians affirmed that guarantees negotiated under the leadership of the French Presidency are “clear, valid and sufficient”. It has also been pointed out that Slovenia's decision to treat this bilateral dispute (which is supposed to be subject to international arbitration, according to the in principle agreement concluded in Bled in 2007) as part of the accession negotiations is “not quite right”. Enlargement Commissioner Oli Rehn appealed at the end of last week for “fair treatment” for Croatia and asked for this bilateral problem not to create “deadlock” in accession negotiations. After having met the Croatian prime minister, Ivo Sanader, on 11 December in Brussels, Mr Rehn declared that “around ten chapters could be opened and five closed” during Friday's session on 19 December. Since Wednesday afternoon, we are aware that the result of the Friday meeting will be much less substantial. Slovenian diplomats explained that their country will only be able to agree to the opening of one chapter (public procurement) and the closing of three chapters (intellectual property law, information society and Economic and Monetary Union). With these three closures, Croatia will have provisionally concluded talks on a total of seven out of the thirty five chapters.
Turkey. On Friday, the EU will also hold a ministerial-level accession conference with Turkey. Two new chapters are expected to be opened up for negotiation: free movement of capital and information society. (H.B./transl.rh)