In November 2005, the Croatian power company HEP initiated international arbitration procedure before the Washington-based International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSDI) so as to get compensation.
Slovene Economy Minister Andrej Vizjak told the Slovene news agency STA on Thursday that Ljubljana had been officially notified about the initiated procedure before the ICSDI, which he said meant the official start of the procedure before the said institution in Washington.
The Slovene minister reiterated his opinion that HEP's claim was unfounded and that Slovenia was also thinking about initiating another procedure also before the ICSDI as Croatia was not honouring the bilateral agreement on the Krsko plant, he said.
He accused Zagreb of failing to establish a fund for the dismantling of the nuclear power plant.
The Krsko nuclear power plant was built in the early 1980s by Slovenia and Croatia while they were members of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The plant is currently co-owned by HEP and the Slovene power company ELES GEN. The Slovene government made a unilateral move on 30 June 1998 stripping HEP of the entitlement to the plant, and stopped delivering electricity to the Croatian company. The break in the delivery lasted until 19 April 2003. Intensive bilateral negotiations resulted in the initialling of a new inter-state agreement on Krsko on 19 December 2001, which regulated all claims and debts by the two sides.
However, the Slovene parliament was late in ratifying the agreement, and HEP began using power supplies from Krsko with a nine-month delay. This period was taken as the basis for damages claim.
In late December 2005, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) notified HEP that its arbitration claim against the Slovene government had been formally registered. The ICSID thereby confirmed HEP's right to settle through arbitration its claim for EUR32 million in compensation for the damage caused as a result of HEP's failure to enter into possession of the Krsko nuclear power plant on 30 June 2002 as provided for under the agreement between Croatia and Slovenia.