The bill, to be discussed by the parliament under urgent procedure on Monday, received the support of all committee members, who also decided to hold another, closed-door session on the matter before the parliamentary session.
Committee member Aurelio Juri said he saw no other solution to determining the sea border with Croatia except through international arbitration or by going to court. He added that the incumbent government was unable to tell Slovene fishermen in Piran Bay where was the point beyond which they were not allowed to go.
Government representatives said the bill was not a unilateral act and that its adoption would strengthen Slovenia's position. Committee chairman Jozef Jerovsek said after the session the committee would convene on Monday to discuss the implications of the bill on the foreign policy front.
The controversial Slovene bill has rekindled the dispute between the incumbent government and formerly ruling parties about which of the governments had a more successful policy towards Croatia.
Commenting on the bill, a candidate for president of the Liberal Democrats (LDS) and Slovene representative in the European Parliament, Jelko Kacin, said that Slovenia, as an independent country, could not have fewer rights than it had when it was a Yugoslav republic and that it had to have access to the open sea. Commenting on the government's bill, he said time would show if the measure was good.
Kacin claims that Prime Minister Janez Jansa acted wrongly when he unconditionally supported the Croatian government in its bid to start membership talks with the EU, which was why he said it was "a bit ridiculous to proclaim the ecological zone now, although it should never be late for that".
The Liberal Democrats, who headed the formerly ruling coalition government, last autumn withdrew support for Croatia's admission to the EU over the "Joras case" and an incident on the border crossing of Plovanija involving a group of Slovene People's Party deputies who were members of the previous government and are now members of the coalition led by Jansa.