At the same time, Slovenia sent the tribunal's registrar a reply to Croatia's diplomatic note of July 31, stating that it is refusing Croatia's unilateral termination of the border arbitration agreement between the two countries and does not agree that the arbitration should be discontinued.
The ministry said that it had send its diplomatic note refusing Croatia's position on the arbitration already on August 5.
Before the ministry's latest statement, Prime Minister Miro Cerar told a news conference that he expected Guillaume to appoint arbitrators for Slovenia as well as for Croatia, whose arbitrator Budislav Vukas withdrew from the arbitration proceedings after Croatia launched a procedure to exit them, and that that would ensure the objectivity of the tribunal's work and its ruling.
Croatia launched a procedure to leave the arbitration proceedings following a scandal which broke out in late July after media released audio-recordings which have not been denied and which testify to the fact that Jernej Sekolec, the originally appointed Slovenian arbitrator in the case, had discussed with Slovenian Foreign Ministry official Simona Drenik a strategy to influence the other judges on the tribunal and communicated with them about the case, thus violating the prescribed procedure.
Slovenian politicians insist almost unanimously that Slovenia did not commit any grave violation of the arbitration agreement that could warrant its termination and that such international treaties simply cannot be terminated.
Slovenia expects to receive support for its position from both the European Commission and the arbitral tribunal.
Yesterday, the Croatian Journalists Association (HND) issued a statement condemning PM Cerar's decision to allow only Slovenian TV reporters to ask him questions at the news conference at which he spoke about his government's decision on a new Slovenian arbitrator.
Questions at the conference could be asked only by the two most popular Slovenian TV stations - TV Slovenia and POP TV, while all the other reporters, including one from the Slovenian Press Agency, were not given answers to their questions, said the HND.