Slovenia and Croatia ink accord on nuclear plant
Date: 20-Dec-01
Country: SLOVENIA
"With this deal Croatia will re-establish its co-ownership and active
management in Krsko. Since we are net energy importers, we needed to
resume energy supplies from this plant," Croatian Prime Minister Ivica
Racan told a news conference.
He added that the Krsko plant, located in Slovenia close to the Croatian
border, would deliver a fifth of Croatia's total power needs.
Slovenia and Croatia have had a number of ongoing disputes since they
declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
In addition to the Krsko plant, the two neighbouring states are trying
to resolve disputes over their sea and land borders and money owed to
Croatians by Slovenia's Ljubljanska Banka.
Slovenia cut Krsko's electricity supply to Croatia in July 1998 after
the two countries failed to strike a deal on the future of the plant.
Negotiations on all unresolved issues were resumed by Racan and his
Slovenian counterpart Janez Drnovsek this year and led to the signing in
July of draft agreements on their borders and the Krsko plant. The
Ljubljanska Banka issue remains unresolved.
"I hope the agreement signed today (on Krsko) will stimulate the
solution of all remaining questions," Racan said.
Drnovsek had warned in September that Slovenia would not ratify the
Krsko agreement if Croatia did not approve the border agreement.
However, he said his government had decided to sign the deal anyway to
reduce the number of open issues.
"Not signing this agreement would mean our government was reneging on
its commitments. Both governments committed to do this, even though we
would have liked to see both agreements signed today," Drnovsek said.
