Speaking to the press on Wednesday, Vincent Degert said Croatia could join the European Union without closing its border issue with Slovenia given that some EU members still had border problems.
Degert added the EU was neither authorised nor would like to be for demarcation issues. He said those were not the EU's but bilateral issues which should be settled by the two countries in dispute.
The ambassador recalled that the EU's negotiating framework with Croatia said that good neighbourly relations were of outstanding importance and that they would improve as Croatia drew closed to the Union.
He said every issue should be settled peacefully, also by resorting to arbitration or the International Court of Justice, and that there were institutions in the EU which could help in negotiations between two countries.
Degert said the border issue in Savudrija/Piran Bay had to be settled to avert the recurrence of incidents.
He went on to say that the EU wanted its members to find a solution to border issues because it took only a little good will and that he felt it existed on both the Croatian and the Slovene side. He recalled that Latvia and Lithuania had a similar issue before joining the Union and found an appropriate solution.
Degert said there was no reason not to close chapters on which entry negotiations had been completed, and that once the negotiations were over, there was no technical reason to block the process.
He was speaking to the press after addressing a business lunch of the American Chamber of Commerce in Croatia.