CROATIA
I would like to talk to you about Croatia today.
First I want to present some general fact about our neighboring country and
then go in to more detail about one bone of contention between Slovenia and Croatia in particular. You probably
already know what I have in mind. What I’m talking about, of course, is the
non-defined border between the two countries in the Piran Bay.
But
let’s first look at some basic facts about Croatia:
Since the adoption of the 1990 Constitution, Croatia has been a democratic
republic.
Between 1990 and 2000 it had a semi-presidential system, and since 2000
it has a parliamentary system.
The President of the Republic (Predsjednik) is the head of state,
directly elected to a five-year term and is limited by the Constitution to a
maximum of two terms. In addition to being the commander in chief of the armed forces, the
president has the procedural duty of
appointing the Prime minister with the consent of the Parliament, and has some
influence on foreign policy.
The Croatian Parliament (Sabor)
is a unicameral
legislative body (a second chamber, the "House of Counties", which was set up by the Constitution
of 1990, has been abolished in 2001). The number of the Sabor's
members can vary from 100 to 160; they are all elected by popular vote to serve
four-year terms. The plenary sessions of the Sabor
take place from January 15 to July 15, and from September 15 to December 15.
The Croatian Government (Vlada)
is headed by the Prime minister who has two deputy prime
ministers and fourteen ministers in charge of particular sectors of activity.
The executive branch is responsible for
proposing legislation and a budget, executing the laws, and guiding the foreign
and internal policies of the republic.
Croatia has a three-tiered judicial system,
consisting of the Supreme Court, county courts,
and municipal courts. The Constitutional Court rules on matters
regarding the Constitution.
Croatia is a
member of:
United
Nations, Council of Europe, OSCE,
Partnership for Peace
Other organizations
And how do we Slovenians get on with
our southern neighbor?
Slovenia's
bilateral relations with its neighbors are generally harmonious and
cooperative. However, there remain a few unresolved disputes with Croatia related to the succession of the former Yugoslavia,
including demarcation of their common border.
Though somewhat rocky at times, Croatian-Slovene
relations are improving. Outstanding issues include a few remaining border
disputes, joint management of the Krško
nuclear power plant, property rights, and Croatian
depositors' savings in the Ljubljanska banka from SFRY times. In a series of
high-level meetings since the latter half of 1998, Slovenia
and Croatia
have been engaged in settling bilateral differences, a process which
accelerated after the death of Croatian President Franjo Tuđman in 1999.
In order to aid the stabilization of this part of Europe, Slovenia has supported Croatia's
efforts to draw closer to European institutions.
From the many problematic points, that Slovenia and Croatia
share, I would like to look more closely only at the situation in the Piran
Bay.
Piran Bay
The Piran Bay,
named after the town of Piran, is a bay in the northern
part of Adriatic Sea
and part of Gulf of Trieste. It measures around 20 km².
Since 1991, the border between Slovenia
and Croatia
in Piran
Bay has been disputed.
The two countries disagree about the border, as it was never defined in the former Yugoslavia.
Slovenia claims that Savudrija was connected with Piran throughout centuries, and that Slovenian police
always controlled the whole bay between 1954 (dissolution of the Free Territory of Trieste) and 1991 (breakup of
Yugoslavia), so the whole bay should belong to Slovenia. Croatia,
on the other hand, claims that the border line should be equidistant from both
shores. In 2001
Janez Drnovšek and Ivica Račan, then
prime ministers of both countries, signed an agreement about the border between the
states. According to that agreement, Croatia
would get approximately one third of the bay and grant Slovenia a
corridor to international waters. However, Croatia never ratified this agreement, while Slovenia did so
soon after it was signed.
After the independence of both nations, Piran Bay has been a place of conflict for
fishermen from both countries and the police.
In June 2006 The Foreign Ministry of Slovenia published a White Paper on
the disputed parts of the border between Slovenia
and Croatia.
On that occasion, Slovenian FM Dimitrij Rupel labelled the document a
means of facilitating dialogue between the two sides.
The
document is based on Slovenia's
stance that the status as it was on the day both countries declared
independence (25 June 1991) should be respected.
It does not deal with the entire border but mainly with access to the high
seas, the Bay of Piran, several
settlements south of the river Dragonja (SW), the
region alongside the river Mura (NE), an area of woods around Sneznik (SW) and an area in Bela krajina (SE).
It contains documents supporting Slovenia's arguments that the
country had jurisdiction over these
areas before declaring independence and continued to have it afterwards.
He also
pointed out that both countries had bound themselves in their constitutional
documents to respect the status on the day of declaring independence, yet Croatia
tried to prejudice the course of the
border through several one-sided activities after 25 June 1991.
Rupel stressed that Croatia
unilaterally changed the name of the historical and internationally recognized Bay of Piran
into "Savudrijska vala"
and drew a border line in the middle of the Bay of Piran
on its maps.
Croatia
also unilaterally and illegally set up its Plovanija
border crossing, which Rupel said stands on Slovenian
territory.
In February
2007, Croatia’s announced the concluding of the so-called Blue Paper, a reply to Slovenia’s
White Paper. It is a collection of evidence for Croatia to use
at an international court with Slovenia.
In the Blue Paper
Croatia’s experts laid out Croatia’s
arguments and positions on the matter. However the contents of the Blue Paper
are carefully kept from the public and thus generally unknown.
The final
resolution of this border question, as well as other border parts with Croatia, that
still represent a problem, will probably be long in coming. But until then we
can only hope, that the politicians on both sides will be competent enough to
try and solve these problems in diplomatic ways, without unnecessary
provocations or slips of the tongue.