Croatia Rejects Slovenian Allegations on Prejudging Border
The Croatian Foreign Ministry criticised on Monday a recent Slovenian diplomatic note in which Slovenia protested Croatia granting concession to the country's INA energy company to explore oil and gas sites in the Northern Adriatic.
While Slovenia believes that Croatia acted unilaterally and is trying to set the border between the two countries where it had not yet been set, Croatia wrote in a diplomatic note that the sea could not be a subject of succession.
The Croatian ministry added that the Slovenian note amounted to raising tensions, which could not benefit any of the two states. "The concession is for the Croatian national territory" and the Croatian cabinet's decision "does not prejudge the delineation line between the two countries", the note reads.
Croatia also protested the "attempt by Slovenia to express in a previously unseen direct way its open and clear intention to appropriate national territory of the Republic of Croatia or areas over which Croatia holds sovereign rights and jurisdiction".
Croatian President Stipe Mesic meanwhile rejected Slovenia's claims that succession also secured Slovenia access to open seas.
"I believe this claim to be false as this was only true in the former Yugoslavia - that is before Croatia appeared, separating Slovenia from the open seas. Imagine Croatia demanding a border with Austria," Mesic said in his regular show at a Croatian radio station.
Sources at the Slovenian Foreign Ministry have said that they are still studying the Croatian document. The ministry, however, believes that it had already said everything in its 23 January note, when it said that the five-year concession encroached on unpartitioned territory.
The view was also backed by Slovenian international law expert Miha Pogacnik, who told STA that he found it appropriate that Slovenia had warned Croatia that the sea border and thereby the jurisdiction over this area still needed to be determined.
Rejecting Croatia's position that the sea was not a subject of succession, Pogacnik stressed that Slovenia needed to protect its interests and use diplomatic means to protest any kind of unilateral activities by Croatia in areas where the sea border is not yet defined.
Pogacnik is also Slovenia's representative for succession.
Patrick Vlacic of the Faculty of Maritime Studies and Transport meanwhile told STA that the concession was contentious as the area given for exploration extended all the way to the border with Slovenia, while the border had not yet been set.
Should the document, adopted by the Croatian cabinet on 5 January, say that the concession would be given for an area that ends at the "future border with Slovenia", the issue would be less contentious, he added.
Vlacic nevertheless believes that it is necessary to refrain from any types of activities in disputed territory.
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