CROATIAN-SLOVENE MEETING ON OIL TRANSIT DISPUTE WITHOUT RESULT

LJUBLJANA, March 18 (Hina) - The second meeting of Croatian and Slovene experts on the transit of oil and hazardous substances through Croatia, which was held in Ljubljana on Monday, ended without concrete results, Croatian Deputy Economy Minister Olgica Spevec said. #L# Croatia does not consider regulations on special corridors for oil transport problematic, but it understands that they have caused Slovene businessmen certain problems, she said. "The main problem is that the Slovene side insists on the dispute being resolved at the international level and not through bilateral talks, as was the case with Bosnia-Herzegovina," Spevec said. Slovenia has complained to the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Council for Trade, demanding that Croatia either revoke the regulations or register them as trade barriers. Spevec said Croatia had no intention of doing the latter because the regulations equally affected both domestic and foreign goods and were adopted exclusively for the sake of environmental protection. The WTO Council for Trade has included Slovenia's complaint in the agenda of its Friday session and Croatia has replied to the complaint in writing. It is impossible to predict if the WTO Council will adopt any recommendation on how the dispute should be solved, but it cannot adopt any decision that would be detrimental to Croatia, Spevec said. For this to happen, Slovenia would have to sue Croatia with the WTO Court. An under-secretary at the Slovene Economy Ministry, Dimitrij Grcar, told reporters Slovenia would inform the WTO about Croatia's regulations at a meeting of the Council for Trade in Goods, which is to be held in Geneva. Grcar reiterated that Slovenia considered the Croatian regulations contrary to a number of articles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Grcar reiterated that the Croatian regulations discriminated against Slovene hauliers and that his country insisted that they be revoked. At today's meeting Slovene representatives presented a nine-item list and demanded that Croatia inform the WTO of the contentious regulations. (hina) sb rml