Slovenia does not accept this, the HNB said in the statement on the issue of foreign currency savings deposits of Croatian citizens in the former Zagreb office of Ljubljanska Banka.
In the extensive statement, which was also posted on the HNB's web site, the central bank presents its position on allegations from Slovenia.
It recalls that in December 1969 Ljubljanska Banka opened its office in Croatia, which in late 1989 became the main office of Ljubljanska Banka in Zagreb without legal personality. The mother bank guaranteed for the obligations of its office with its assets and without any limitations.
This means that depositors of the bank's office in Zagreb which did not have legal personality were and still are in a contractual relationship with Ljubljanska Banka from Ljubljana, the HNB said.
Commenting on allegations that the former Yugoslav federation guaranteed for foreign currency savings and that NLB has nothing to do with Ljubljanska Banka, the HNB says that guarantees for foreign currency savings are activated when a bank goes bankrupt, which was not the case with Ljubljanska Banka. The bank continued doing business several years after the break-up of the former federation under the same name, and then transformed into NLB "with the evident intention of getting rid of its predecessor's obligations towards depositors from outside Slovenia".
In the process of transformation, NLB practically took over all the assets of Ljubljanska Banka and its depositors from Slovenia, while preventing non-Slovene depositors from claiming their deposits in line with the 1994 constitutional law which served as a basis for the operation.
The HNB also dismissed allegations that obligations towards Croatian depositors would have been settled if the HNB had not prevented the operation of the Ljubljanska Banka office in Zagreb and thwarted the arrival of NLB in Croatia.
The Zagreb office of Ljubljanska Banka should have been financially restructured and requested an operating licence to continue with its operation, the HNB says, adding that it had tolerated for years a limited scope of activity of the office as a sign of good faith.
It was only on 14 July 2000 that the office's drawing account was closed, which means that the Slovene side had a decade to solve its status. This was not done and now the payment of savings deposits is being made conditional on the direct or indirect arrival of NLB in the Croatian financial market, the HNB says, adding that NLB had been allowed to enter Bosnia's financial market, but the bank's obligations towards Bosnian clients were not met.
Responding to allegations that by allowing its nationals to transfer their savings from the offices of banks based outside Croatia to Croatian banks, Croatia had taken over obligations towards all holders of savings accounts, the HNB says that obligations of the Slovene bank did not cease to exist in any case. In the case of savings that were not transferred to banks in Croatia there remains a direct obligation towards depositors and in the case of transferred savings, which in the meantime had been paid from the Croatian state budget, the right to claim savings was transferred to the Republic of Croatia.
Two-thirds of the savings from the Zagreb office of Ljubljanska Banka were transferred and around one-third was not. Croatian nationals claim back around 312 million German marks of savings that were not transferred, plus interest, while the Croatian state claims almost twice the amount for the savings that were transferred, the HNB says.
The central bank also responded to allegations that Croatia does not respect international agreements, notably Annex C of the Agreement on Succession Issues.
Concerning the obligations referring to savings deposits, in interpreting the Agreement Slovene officials cite the principle of territoriality, meaning that each successor state must take over guarantees for the overall savings collected on its present territory regardless of which bank those savings were deposited in.
"In doing so they are completely ignoring the fact that the Agreement sets the principle under which Slovenia's 16-percent share in financial assets and liabilities is based on its share in foreign currency deposits of citizens deposited with the former National Bank of Yugoslavia, with deposits in Ljubljanska Banka offices in all republics of the former federation having been calculated to the benefit of Slovenia".
"Without those deposits, Slovenia's share in the joint property would be much lower (around 13.26 percent). Does this mean that one principle should be applied to the division of rights and another when it comes to meeting obligations to depositors?," the HNB says in the statement.
The HNB says that there had been no plans to hold negotiations on foreign currency savings under the auspices of the IMF and that talks at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel ended inconclusively after it was established that the position and interests of Slovenia on the one side, and of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia on the other, were opposed and irreconcilable.
Responding to claims that Croatia, the HNB and its governor are behaving in a non-European and discriminating fashion and violating European legislation on free movement of capital, the HNB says the claims sound absurd in a country where 92 percent of the banking system is owned by foreign banks.
Denying the central bank of any country the right to assess if a bank trying to enter its banking system contributes to its credibility and stability, taking into account the bank's attitude to legal regulations and contractual obligations, is irreconcilable with the European legislation too, the HNB says in the statement.