Delo carried Zagreb's reactions to the incident, which saw 12 Slovene nationals, including several senior officials of the Slovene People's Party, enter Croatia by avoiding border control. Journalist Miha Jenko said in a commentary that Ljubljana's reaction to the incident was exaggerated.
"With the claim that support to Croatia's admission to the EU will temporarily be denied, the outgoing government has fired a shell of the heaviest calibre, thus encumbering the next government, regardless of what it will be like, with quite a lot of heavy and unnecessary baggage in the settlement of relations with the southern neighbour," wrote Jenko.
He added the straining of political relations put both sides on the losing end because economic relations gave the two countries a big reason to settle political relations in a civilised manner. He recalled that last year's trade exceeded US$1 billion.
Dnevnik columnist Miha Kovac said the incident was an attempt by Slovene People's Party leader Janez Podobnik to save his party at the election, and that it represented "a disaster for all people of good intentions on both sides of the border".
"All the unacceptable moves on the Croatian side don't justify those in the Slovene right wing calling for the forcible takeover of jurisdiction on the disputed territory and building their populist policy on (Jozko) Joras (Slovene politician denying Croatian sovereignty in his place of residence in Istria). Calling for taking over jurisdiction in the Istrian hamlets is tantamount to calling for an armed conflict. Such politicians either don't know what they are saying or are consciously calling for the Balkanisation of the Slovene-Croatian dispute," wrote Kovac.
He added this was proof that the Slovene right wing, were it to come to power, "wouldn't be able to lead Slovenia's foreign policy".