Minister Jandroković met with Slovenian Premier Janša and Foreign Minister Rupel

author: Bor Slana/Bobo

After the meeting, at the joint press conference, Foreign Ministers Jandroković and Rupel said that Slovenia would sign the Protocol on Croatia’s accession to the Alliance together with other NATO members, on Wednesday, in Brussels, and she was willing to enable opening of Chapter 13 on Fishery in Croatia’s access negotiations with the EU.

Collocutors agreed the relations between the two countries were much better than it sometimes appears in public.

Minister Jandroković said his first meeting with his colleague Rupel was extremely useful and it came at the right time. He added that talks were open and friendly and that they thoroughly revised all issues and accomplishments.

Minister Rupel agreed that relations were good, and that both sides wanted them to become even better adding that a few open issues did not cloud very good relations and traditional ties thereby emphasizing high level of economic cooperation.

The two sides also talked about strategic cooperation between Croatia and Slovenia in the EU and NATO, but also on the accession of other states in the region to Euro-Atlantic integration aimed at stabilization of SE Europe. Ministers confirmed that an agreement on cooperation between the two countries could be reached on this subject in the near future.

Regarding border issues, Ministers expressed the opinion that there would be improvements in the work of inter-state committees established after the meeting and the agreement between Prime Ministers of the two governments in August, 2008. Minister Jandroković said the quality of solutions in the process was more important than the speed of their resolution.

Minister Jandroković emphasized that it was of great importance for Croatia to single out bilateral issues from accession negotiations with the EU. "I believe together with our Slovenian friends we shall find solution to our open issues,” Minister Jandroković said.

Among topics were also vignettes in Slovenia and Croatian suggestion to introduce vignettes for shorter period.