Trump, wholesale

The conflict between Slovenia and Croatia over the demarcation at sea (division of jurisdiction in the Bay of Piran), the division of state territory into several undefined elevations on land, and the ownership of the nuclear power plant in Krško (NEK) lasted for more than a decade. These days, it is entering the final phase - the politicians of the two countries announced that an agreement had been reached, at the negotiating table. The moderators were Prime Ministers Janez Drnovšek and Ivica Račan.

It was known that recently there have been frequent "conspiratorial meetings" near the Slovenian-Croatian border, most often in the castle of Mokrica, not far from Brežice, once in Rijeka... The compromise reached does not at all smell of gunpowder and generals, who appeared sporadically in the past period; on the contrary, the "deal" is exclusively political, and at the key moments of the negotiations, all those who could get in the way were eliminated. Thus, the Croatian government replaced the Kocoper president at the head of the State Commission on Borders and replaced Dr. Hrvoj Kačić with Olja Kresović-Rogulja, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dimitrije Rupel, the Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs, always in a mood for a fight, was also neutralized; he was sent on an official trip to Spain during the key moments of the negotiations.

AKO It won't BREG: That the agreement is a done deal is proven by the fact that the Slovenian and Croatian sides have already initialed the agreement on the border and the agreement on the nuclear power plant in Krško. The agreement by which the official Ljubljana and Zagreb divided the once unique, federal sea (in the northern part of the Adriatic) is quite simple. Slovenia gets 80,2 percent of the area of ​​the Piran Bay, while the rest belongs to Croatia. The most sensitive issue - Slovenia's access to the open sea (which was a key demand of Ljubljana) - was solved by cunning. After many years of struggle, Slovenia "received" a 3,6-kilometer-wide and about ten-kilometer-long belt, which has already acquired the nickname "chimney".

The channel in the shape of a chunk connects the Slovenian territorial sea with the international waters of the Adriatic, whereby the status of the sea in that part of the Gulf of Trieste will be defined by diplomatic notes. To them, Slovenia and Croatia will renounce the right to declare that part of the Adriatic as their territorial sea, and the sea within the said passage will receive the status of international waters. In that, now open sea, fishermen from both countries will be able to enter and hunt unhindered, which in recent years has been a neuralgic point due to numerous interceptions by maritime patrols and police, and there have been arrests and confiscation of boats "due to violations of state sovereignty".

The whole operation has turned upside down all previous plans for the solution of border problems - instead of "expanding" the Slovenian territorial sea towards international waters, now the international waters of the Adriatic "reach" the Slovenian territorial sea! It is an elegant and best offer that Slovenia has ever received from the Croatian side. Until now, Croatia has only offered "unimpeded passage" of ships through its territorial sea. The downside of such a solution was that it would retain the right to stop ships in "its" sea, and even prohibit the passage of the ship, even though it is on its way to Slovenia. In other words, the unimpeded passage meant that Croatia could "comb" everything sailing towards Slovenia. The head of the Croatian negotiating team at the time, Dr. Kačić, did not hide how it would look in practice and, among other things, stated that Croatia would probably "ne bi allowed passage of Yugoslavia ships". The installation of the "chimney", however, allows Slovenia to receive whoever it wants in its ports, without the supervision of Croatia, which no longer has the right to stop ships flying foreign flags, nor to investigate what they are transporting (eg military equipment and the like).

Only the question of who the seabed belongs to remains unresolved. The two countries have agreed that (for now) they will not allow the use of that part of the seabed by third countries. All this was done with an important condition - Croatia still directly borders Italy on the sea. That is why a smaller part of the sea in the Gulf of Trieste (on the other side of the Slovenian "chimney", towards the Italian sea) remained in the hands of Croatia.

COME WASTE I RADIATION: It is no small surprise that in the same package a compromise was found for the ownership of the nuclear power plant in Krško. There were many problems in the past, many direct and contradictory moves, all of which ended up in court, with no prospect of a quick end, even though Slovenia undertook several years ago in agreements with Austria to liquidate the controversial nuclear plant by 2007 at the latest. The latest agreement between Croatia and Slovenia does not take into account the wishes of Austrian politics and the public; on the contrary, to the horror of environmentalists, new life was breathed into the evaporators of the looted nuclear plant. The "half-half" system was adopted, which means that both countries are equal owners of the NEK. After the signing of the agreement, Croatia is expected to drop the lawsuits due to the undelivered electricity (worth around 200 million German marks). Slovenia, for its part, remembers outstanding claims against Croatia from the period (until 1998) when it was considered the sole heir to the NEK after the collapse of the SFRY, which would be "offset" by the amount arising from the amount of electricity not delivered to Croatia, which was used in the Slovenian consumer network in the period until July 1, 2002.

Therefore, with this act, Slovenia returns to Croatia not only the status of an investor, but also that of a full owner. In the future, all decisions should be adopted unanimously, as before the unilateral Slovenian decrees that "disempowered" Croatia. It is envisaged that the president of the business board of NEK will be a Croat, while the president of the board (who has a decisive vote on safety issues) should be a Slovenian.

The dispute over the ownership of the nuclear plant in Krško has been going on since independence in 1991. Slovenia tried to outwit Croatia by arbitrarily changing the NEK law after the first failed negotiations. The new regulation deprived Croatia of being an equal partner and recognized it only as an investor, but not as a founder. After that, the nuclear plant was overhauled and rebuilt without Croatia's consent. Officials from Zagreb responded to the Slovenian maneuver with economic sanctions - they paid, admittedly, for the electricity purchased from the NEK, but at a price they determined themselves and which was more than symbolic, Ljubljana claimed. Therefore, in August 1998, electricity was cut off in Croatia - by disconnecting the power lines leading to the south... The latest Drnovšek-Račan agreement erases past debts and mutual claims.

However, the good news did not satisfy everyone, especially the management of the NEK. Because it believes that the upcoming financial construction represents a big concession from Slovenia to Croatia. It is nice that Croatia is returning to the management of the NEK as an equal partner as far as the exploitation of electricity is concerned, but equality disappears when it comes to the "most important by-product" of that production - nuclear waste. Atomic waste remains in Slovenia, there is no doubt. Croatian officials have previously claimed that "na Pamet ne pada" to support the payment of the so-called of the Croatian part for decommissioning the nuclear plant, so that "ours support have at their disposal u Slovenia". Slovenia has a radically different attitude on this issue, especially since it has been dealing with accumulated nuclear waste for years, unsuccessfully trying to find a location to store the barrels. That's why Croatia was criticized ten years ago for selfishly wanting cheap electricity, while leaving all the problems surrounding nuclear waste and other "uncomfortable" and risky products of "nuclear energy" production to the Slovenian partner.

A KUD SELA: In the previous negotiations, Slovenia requested that this issue be resolved by 2007 at the latest, since it is covered with barrels marked "danger, radiation". To that extent, the Račan-Drnovšek agreement looks like a nice letter on paper, especially after the statement of the Director of the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Authority, Miroslav Gregorič, that it will be "bad" if a permanent solution for the NEK is only sought around 2020. And if it is known that according to the details of the initialed agreement (which has not yet been revealed to the public in its entirety) the deadline for solving the NEK problem is 2025, then it is certain that Slovenia will be deep in nuclear waste. When asked by a journalist, what are the guarantees from the Croatian side that they will participate in the search for a location for nuclear waste, one of the ministers in the Slovenian government curtly replied that the "Rijeka agreement" will have the status of an "intergovernmental agreement". Part of the commentators believe that with this Slovenia has renounced "self-help" regarding the storage of nuclear waste. Others warn that it is certain that Slovenia will primarily pay for the debt, if there is no answer to the question of who will pay the enormous costs of storing or "exporting" nuclear waste to third countries (Russia is mentioned). And some new type of "beating" will hardly be possible between Ljubljana and Zagreb at the moment when the NEK is closed, in 2025. Then there are no more chances for a new, ultimate "uncoupling" of the transmission line towards Zagreb.

It is clear that Prime Minister Janez Drnovšek rushed to put out the fire at home after the first criticisms in the domestic media. Despite the efforts, doubts remained about the value of the "historic agreement". Some of the Slovenian columnists criticized the agreement "because it does not solve problems in the long term", plus it "leaves the impression that the decision to cut off the supply of electricity to Croatia in 1998 was a mistake". The prime minister also admits this while saying that he "doesn't know what would have happened" if Ljubljana had not taken such a step. Finally, the Slovenian nuclear lobby was also satisfied, since the agreement with Croatia also means an international guarantee for the preservation of jobs and nice financial rewards, at least for another quarter of a century. As for the owners of apartments and houses in Krško, for whom the value of their properties will fall for decades to come due to the fear of damage and radiation - they got nothing.

In the end, the question arises, where did such a settlement come from, all of a sudden? It's simple - Croatia, just like Slovenia, wants European integration as soon as possible. In order to show themselves as mature negotiators, both are trying to give Europe the impression that they are not carrying any new conflicts with them, none of the ballast from the past. That is why Zagreb relented on the sea border, offering a solution that Slovenia would most likely not be able to implement despite the threat of arbitration. Slovenia also swallowed something about the Krško nuclear plant, which has been a weight around its neck for years. On the other hand, the fear has recently been growing in Croatia that Slovenia could cause serious problems for it by introducing the Schengen border, when it becomes a member of the EU... The mutual balance of fear is balanced by a barter - a little sea, for four villages and some electricity.

However, before the agreements enter into force, procedural complications should be expected. Because this "package of solutions" also included four villages in Istria, which were formally considered part of the Slovenian cadastre, and are now handed over to Croatia. Not only part of the Slovenian public is angry - the Croatian right is also dissatisfied. The Croatian Parliament will discuss the agreement only at the end of August. A special topic will be the fate and status of disputed settlements for which certain reliefs are foreseen. In one of them lives Joško Joras, until now a citizen of Slovenia and Croatia, who for months entertained the public on both sides of the border with various stunts (demonstratively displaying the Slovenian flag, refusing to pay Croatian customs for a washing machine bought in Slovenia, etc.). After learning that from now on he officially lives in Croatia, Joras declared that "betrayal" and that "double da ga it is not strfio infarct". His case is the best testimony to how bad an individual's move sometimes affects state affairs. If Joras had joined Drnovšek's LDS instead of the People's Party of Slovenia, then the border between Slovenia and Croatia would, no doubt, have been different.