Rop said that immediately after the incident he phoned his Croatian counterpart Ivo Sanader to have the detainees released, and that the Slovene government would convene for a regular session on Thursday to discuss the case and take the necessary measures.
"The Slovene government will use all instruments that are in the context of the European policy. We believe that this was not an incident which occurred in Slovenia and which was directed only against Slovenia, it was also directed against the European Union, so we expect the European Commission and its representatives to act accordingly," Rop told reporters.
He added that Slovene Ambassador to Croatia Peter Bekes had been called back for consultations.
Foreign Minister Ivo Vajgl, who was attending the annual session of the UN General Assembly in New York, will also return to Slovenia due to the incident, Rop said.
Slovene TV stations last night aired a phone interview with the leader of the Slovene People's Party, Janez Podobnik, who repeated that he considered it unnecessary to produce his documents for the Croatian police because he was on Slovene territory.
The 12 Slovene citizens, who yesterday afternoon were detained in the Buje police station for illegally entering Croatia and refusing to identify themselves, were released after the questioning and escorted to the border crossing of Plovanija around 10 pm, Istria County police department spokeswoman Stefanija Prosenjak Zumbar said.
She added that the police would initiate misdemeanour proceedings against the Slovenes for violating Croatia's laws on state border control and the movement and sojourn of foreign nationals.
She dismissed claims by Slovene media that the Croatian police injured party leader Podobnik while trying to arrest the Slovenes, most of them members of the Slovene People's Party.