After talks with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, Poettering said that approaching an international court in Hamburg or The Hague would be the best solution, adding that this required agreement of the two governments.
Sanader said that his talks with European Parliament officials on Wednesday and Thursday also focused on Croatia-Slovenia relations. "Everybody agrees that this is a bilateral and not multilateral, European issue," Sanader said.
He reiterated that Croatia and Slovenia are two friendly and partner countries that have "a lot more in common that these several issues"
"If we cannot solve the issue of Savudrija Bay bilaterally, and we have not been able to do that since the break-up of Yugoslavia, then we should approach an international judicial body, which the Croatian government suggested to Slovenia back in the autumn of 2005," Sanader said, adding that the two countries' parliaments should undertake to abide by the decision of this international judicial body
The proposal concerning the international arbitration was also supported by a member of the European Parliament and rapporteur on Croatia, Austrian Socialist Hannes Swoboda who said yesterday that Croatia and Slovenia should resolve their border issues through international arbitration if they were unable to settle the problem bilaterally.
Slovenia and Croatia should first try to solve the issue by themselves. If that does not produce a positive result, they should go to international arbitration, Swoboda told reporters after a meeting between Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and members of the Socialist group in the European Parliament.
Swoboda supported Croatia's proposal that the issue of border demarcation should be resolved before an international court if no agreement could be reached bilaterally.
Swoboda put forward an amendment on this issue to his progress report on Croatia, which had been presented to the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee in late January.
The amendment urges both parties to take advantage of all available opportunities to reach an agreement on all outstanding border issues and to refrain from any unilateral action that might prevent such an agreement.
In case no agreement is reached, the two countries are called upon to consider the possibility of resorting to international arbitration.
Over a hundred amendments have been proposed so far to the Croatia progress report. The Foreign Affairs Committee will put them to the vote later this month, after which the report will be sent to a plenary session of Parliament.