Slovenia to Insist EU to Be Exempt from Croatian Regime

Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel was adamant on Monday that Slovenia would insist on EU member states being exempt from the provisions of the Croatian ecological and fisheries zone.

"As far as I know", Italy will insist on this too, Rupel said on the sidelines of the EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels today. Rupel discussed the issue with European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn. "We both regretted agreement has not been reached at the adequate level. We hope this will be possible in the autumn." "Regarding the Croatian ecological and fisheries zone, we believe agreements reached in 2004 must be respected", Rupel said, and explained that the three sides involved and the European Commission agreed at the time that the regime would not apply to EU member states.
Months-long technical negotiations between Croatia, Italy, Slovenia and the European Commission in Brussels failed to yield any results. Rupel said recently the talks would resume at the political level. The minister did not want to speculate today why the sides would not meet over the issue until the autumn, but he did say he believed agreement should be reached before Slovenia's spell as EU president in 2008. "I trust this will be possible."
Croatia's parliament declared the ecological and fisheries zone in the Adriatic on 3 October 2003 and on 3 June 2004 passed a decision to postpone the enforcement of the regime for Slovenia and Italy pending an agreement to the interests of all parties. A reference to such an agreement is also made in the European Council's decisions of June 2004, in the part relating to the launch of accession talks with Croatia in 2005. In a new development, the Croatian parliament endorsed on 15 December 2006 the government's proposal to fully enforce the regime even for EU member states by 1 January 2008 at the latest.

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