"Commissioner Rehn has won support for his initiative. This (initiative) is the only proposal on the table and member-states are supporting it. Probably, the Troika will be included in the continuation of the process, as the support to Rehn's efforts to adjust the proposal," Zbogar said at on the margins of Saturday's informal meeting focused on Slovenia's blockade of Croatia's EU entry talks over their border dispute and on the European prospects of the Western Balkans.
The Troika consists of France, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
The engagement of these three countries could be interpreted as an attempt to exert more pressure on Slovenia to lift the blockade.
While chairing the EU in the second half of 2008, France invested huge efforts so as to resolve this problem.
Carl Bildt, the Foreign Minister of Sweden that will take over the EU rotating presidency from Prague in the second half of 2009, said on Friday that EU countries were losing patience over a bilateral dispute being used to block Croatia's accession talks.
A number of foreign ministers attending the talks in Hluboka implicitly criticized Slovenia by saying bilateral disputes should not stand in the way of EU enlargement.
Bilateral issues should be separated from the enlargement process. That stems from the negotiating framework, it applied in previous situations and should apply now. We should not tolerate bilateral disputes being used to block a multilateral process, Bildt said.
After the debate on Saturday morning during which Rehn notified EU foreign ministers about his several rounds of negotiations with Zbogar and Croatia's Foreign Minister Gordan Jandrokovic, ministers of EU aspirants, including Croatia's Jandrokovic joined in the talks.
Speaking to reporters upon his arrival at the meeting, Jandrokovic commented on a statement by Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger who said yesterday that Rehn's latest compromise proposal, which is not yet made public, suggested the separation of the problem of border demarcation from the right to be given to Slovenia to have access to the high seas.
"I have talked with several foreign ministers, including the Austrian colleague. The point of Rehn's proposal is not in that direction. I have heard from our sources that the Austrian minister presented an idea on how to solve the issue. According to our information Spindelegger spoke about his idea," Jandrokovic said.
We shall see how thighs will develop in the coming days, he said adding that he did not know whether the Austrian proposal had been formalised.