Slovene Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said at a session of the committee that even though the bill also referred to Macedonia and Turkey, its adoption was proposed primarily because of the great interest of Slovene nationals in buying real estate in Croatia.
Since the break-up of the former Yugoslavia Slovenes have been unable to buy real estate in Croatia and Croatians have been unable to buy real estate in Slovenia.
While Croatia has a regulation under which foreign nationals can buy real estate on condition of reciprocity, Slovenia has a rule in principle which enables nationals of EU member states to buy real estate in Slovenia. Under the present bill, which is yet to be discussed by the parliament, this rule would be expanded to include EU candidate countries. Approval for the acquisition of ownership rights over real estate in Slovenia would in that case be granted by the Foreign Ministry, which would first have to obtain the opinion of the Justice Ministry.
Asked by legal experts in parliament if the bill would serve its purpose and how it regulated the issue of reciprocity, a Foreign Ministry official said that material reciprocity would be established individually and that applications for the acquisition of ownership rights failing to meet the reciprocity criteria would be turned down. The chairman of the committee on foreign policy, Jozef Jerovsek, said that this solution was being applied in other EU member states as well.