The Croatian government rejected in their entirety the parts of the decree referring to the sea area where Croatia has sovereignty, specifically the part of Croatia's territorial sea which in the northern part of the Adriatic temporarily extends to the middle of Savudrija Bay.
The government said the parts of the decree referring to the sea area including Croatia's protected ecology and fisheries zone were also unacceptable.
According to the statement, the decree does not and cannot have any legal effect in sea areas in which Croatia has sovereignty or sovereign rights, and the Croatian government assesses that this is an unacceptable decision which could be interpreted as an attempt to encroach on Croatia's state territory.
The statement went on to say that the Slovene decree was in direct contrast to a joint statement on the avoidance of incidents, adopted last year at a joint session of the two governments, as well as contrary to the commitment taken on that occasion that neither side would unilaterally create a new state of affairs along the border.
The statement added the decree was also contrary to international law and the fundamental principles of international relations, including principles on which the European Union is based.
The Croatian government said it could not accept that the decree was a response to Croatia's regulations on its fishing area, which the Croatian government adopted in mid-December, because the decree's objective was not to regulate fishing zones for the purpose of implementing the 2002 law on sea fisheries.
The statement went on to say that the Slovene decree was in direct contrast to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, specifically Article 15, which stipulates ways of state border demarcation in bays, as well as Article 2, which stipulates that a state is entitled to sea areas depending on its mainland.
According to the statement, said international law provisions make it "entirely unacceptable of Slovenia to attempt with its decree to unilaterally appropriate the entire sea in Savudrija Bay, whose coast belongs to (both) Croatia and Slovenia, and to attempt to determine that the alleged Slovene territorial sea extends from Croatian land (Cape Savudrija)".
The Croatian government concluded by saying that the Slovene decree confirmed that its formal proposal to the Slovene government, to submit the settlement of the sea border dispute to an international judicial body, was politically justified and legally founded.