Talks between Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor and his Croatian counterpart Ivo Sanader held yesterday (24 February) in the Slovenian town of Mokrice failed to achieve tangible results, media from the two countries reported.
Until there is progress in solving the border dispute, Slovenia will continue to block Croatia's EU accession negotiations, Pahor reportedly said.
The two countries did not even agree on a framework for dealing with the conflict. Slovenia supports EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn's preference for Brussels mediation, while Croatia maintains that the border issue should be solved before an international court. However, that option could take several years, while Zagreb wants to join the Union in 2010.
Richard Howitt MEP, UK Labour spokesman for foreign affairs and enlargement in the European Parliament, was in Zagreb yesterday for a meeting with Croatian President Stipe Mesic, the country's prime minister and other key figures. Howitt told EurActiv that he had advised them that their country should voluntarily waive its right to veto future enlargements with other states from the Western Balkans "to take the moral high ground in its dispute with Slovenia".
"Sanader and the chief negotiator didn't say 'no'," Howitt said. However, he underlined Croatia's concerns that the country should not to be treated differently to other recent EU members. Zagreb insists that it was given assurances by Ljubljana in the mid-1990s that Slovenia would not block future enlargements on the basis of bilateral issues.
The MEP recalled that similar problems of a bilateral nature are currently setting Greece and Macedonia against one another, not to mention Cyprus and Turkey, adding: "That's why the whole enlargement process is under threat."
Howitt also called for the conclusion of a legally binding treaty within the Western Balkans to pre-empt similar problems in that conflict-ridden region in the future.
'Referendum madness'
Asked to comment on attempts by some political players in Slovenia to organise a referendum against Croatia joining NATO, Howitt said there is "referendum madness going around Europe," which according to him has much to do with nationalism and xenophobia.
In fact, Slovenia is the only NATO member to have not yet agreed to allow Croatia to become the next member of the alliance, adding to the tension ahead of a NATO summit in April. Last week, a Slovenian political party began collecting the 40,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum.
Although he believes it is unlikely that the 40,000 threshold will be achieved, Howitt deplored the development. "The prospect of presenting a disunited Europe in the first NATO summit with US President [Barack] Obama is extremely embarrassing to Europe and to the image we want to have in the world, and I think Slovenia would suffer, within Europe, if that referendum goes ahead," the MEP stressed.
