EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: RESOLUTION ON SLOVENIA, CROATIAN-SLOVENE RELATIONS

ZAGREB, May 22 (Hina) - The European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday adopted an amendment to a resolution on Slovenia concerning Croatian-Slovene relations. Contrary to Slovenia's bids, Croatia is not requested to ratify its border agreement with Slovenia, but the amendment does not explicitly note international arbitration, which is in Croatia's interest. #L# "Slovenia is called on to continue solving open questions with Croatia, taking into account Article 4 of the Declaration of the Council of Ministers from Helsinki, and welcomes the progress achieved so far, and that's all," a diplomatic source in Zagreb said. Slovenia wanted the amendment to include a request that the Croatian parliament ratify the border agreement and that international arbitration, in case of no agreement on contentious issues, be dropped from the amendment. The source said that international arbitration was explicitly excluded from the amendment, as Slovenia wanted, however, the amendment noted Article 4 of the Helsinki Declaration, which "calls on candidate-countries to solve border and other issues through negotiations, and if that is not possible, before the International Court of Justice". "Pointing to Article 4 implicitly emphasises international arbitration," the source believes. The resolution, which is part of a parliamentary report on progress in EU candidate-countries, should be adopted by the European Parliament at the plenary session in June. (hina) rml sb