Norbert Lammert's assessment that Croatia is not ready for membership yet is a friendly warning Croatia cannot ignore, Sencar said at a session of the Slovenian parliament's committee on EU affairs.
He said it was quite a serious warning that had brought the Croatian government into an awkward position, especially since it came from Germany, a big advocate of Croatia's EU accession. He added that Slovenia could agree with the warning.
"We agree in a way that the warning made sense," Sencar said, adding that in its latest monitoring report on Croatia, the European Commission had defined the areas in which Croatia needed to make progress before EU accession.
Lammert on Sunday called for a halt to the EU enlargement process, including the planned accession of Croatia, saying it was not ready for entry, but German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said shortly thereafter he was confident that Croatia would join the EU as planned.
When asked at today's committee session if German officials' positions could slow down the ratification of Croatia's accession treaty in the EU countries that had not yet ratified it, including Slovenia, Sencar said one could assume that but that this was his personal opinion.
The Slovenian Foreign Ministry recently applauded the EC progress report on Croatia, saying it was realistic. But Ljubljana continues to tie its ratification of the treaty to the Ljubljanska Banka issue, despite Croatia's assessments that the two matters are not related.