Slovenia And Croatia To Jointly Govern Piran Bay

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The condominium, i.e. joint governance, is a solution advocated by Peter Tos, one of the heads of the joint commission for borders.

Peter Tos, former Slovene diplomat who headed the joint Croatian-Slovene commission for borders, presented his vision of the best solution of the diplomatic soap opera between Croatia and Slovenia to the Slovene Dnevnik.si daily. According to him, “the optimal solution would be a condominium over the Savudria Cove”, i.e. Piran Bay. Tos hopes that talks between the two countries would continue in this direction.

Condominium exists only in theory

In political theory, i.e. international law, a condominium is a political territory in which two sovereign powers have equal rights. The countries can also jointly govern this territory, without dividing it to national zones. Although condominia are recognised in legal systems as a theoretical possibility, they are rare in practice. The biggest problem and reason why there are so few of them, are difficulties in securing co-operation between the countries. For instance, the Caspian Sea is a condominium between Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, just as the small Pheasant island is a French-Spanish condominium. Furthermore, Croatian port Rijeka became a condominium of Hungary and Croatia within the Habsburg Monarchy in 1868.

- None of the countries advocate such a solution. It enables Slovenia free access to the open sea and spreading of the fishery zone, i.e. it does not seize Croatian territory and does not limit the contact of its territorial sea with Italian – Tos told the Dnevnik daily.

Slovene media guess that Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor and her Slovene counterpart Borut Pahor discussed this solution at a recent meeting in Trakoscan. Tom has a lot of confidence in Croatia`s Kosor, saying that Slovenia and Croatia will now finally resolve the border dispute on their own, without a third party, “especially now that Croatia has a new premier”.

Slovenes and Croats have had enough of the dispute

Former Croatia PM Ivo Sanader sent out Slovenia rather a dramatic message on several occasions: Croatia will not buy European Union membership with territorial compromises to Slovenia.

However, Sanader`s firm position may have made the Slovenes compromise and think of a condominium, given that the aggressive plan of using their EU member status for attaining territory has failed, much like Italy did to Slovenia during its EU accession process.

Peter Tos pointed out to the media that “quiet diplomacy” was essential at this point, adding that the citizens of both countries have had enough of the border dispute. According to him, the time is right for a final solution. Furthermore, Tos shares PM Pahor`s optimism, as presented in Trakoscan, for the “final solution” to be reached by the end of year.

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