I would not interpret it as the refusal, as far as Slovenia is concerned, everything is fine," Pahor told reporters, commenting on reports by a Croatian daily that the Basel-based institution refused to mediate in the Croatian-Slovenian dispute regarding foreign currency deposits of Croatian clients in the now defunct Ljubljanska Banka.
Pahor said Slovenia was satisfied with a letter which Croatian Finance Minister Ivan Suker had sent to BIS, in accordance with his agreement with his Croatian counterpart Jadranka Kosor. According to Pahor, Suker asked for information about the readiness of BIS to organise a new round of talks on the problem of the clients' deposits in the Ljubljanska bank within succession procedure.
"We are satisfied with the letter. With it, Croatia has acceded to a new round of negotiations," Pahor told reporters today.
The Croatian government on October 14 adopted a decision entrusting Finance Minister Suker with notifying BIS of Croatia's readiness to continue negotiations on the Ljubljanska Banka debt.
According to the Slovenian authorities, the Croatian letter to BIS showed that Croatia had given up its previous position that the problem exclusively referred to the property and legal relations between the Slovenian bank and its clients.
According to the Slovenian media, efforts to resolve the issue of guarantees for the then foreign currency deposits in the SFRY should engage all countries-successors to the SFRY and the matter could be settled one to three years after the start of the talks.
"Croatia has agreed to send all documentation to Basel so that the arbiter could do his job," Pahor told reporters.
Gabrovec said he had no information that BIS had turned down a proposal to mediate into a new round of talks on this matter. Negotiations on this matter were already held within BIS in 2002.
The savings of Croatian clients amounted to EUR 420 million, without interest rate. Of that amount, some EUR 260 million were taken over by Croatia as public debt, and EUR 160 million has been retained by clients in the Ljubljanska bank. The negotiations in late 2001 and in early 2002 within BIS ended inconclusively.
After the recent decision by the Croatian government to transfer the negotiations on clients of the Ljubljanska Banka to Basel, Slovenia said that it would not longer obstruct the closing of the Free Movement of Capital within Croatia's accession negotiations with the European Union.