Slovenes Want Chinese Wall on Border with Croatia

This way the Slovenes would make a ‘real’ 670 kilometre-long border between the EU and the ‘Balkans’.

After a stroll along the Chinese Wall, Slovenia’s former president Milan Kucan asked the Chinese state heads what the price was for a 670-kilometre wall, which he would like to erect along the Slovene border with Croatia. Luckily, the Chinese responded that they could not make such a wall in the desired dimensions. 

-- We do not have the adequate dimensions, and retail is located in Shanghai, not in Beijing, -- the Chinese replied to Kucan’s joke.

This anecdote was recalled by a former Slovene official, Ivan Senicar, in his memoirs. The incident happened in 1996 when Kucan was in an official visit to China. The Slovene Dnevnik daily published a section of Senicar’s memoirs.

Although this occurred in the mid-1990’s, the fact remains that our European neighbours are still not far from this way of thinking.