Slovenia’s Jansa: Rehn Might Favour Croatia

Former Slovene premier Jansa is suspicious towards Olli Rehn´s initiative, because he might favour the EU candidate.

When the possible involvement of the European Commission is concerned, due to the Slovenian blockade of the Croatian accession negotiations, the time factor is very important for Slovenia, meaning that the dispute be solved before Croatia enters the EU, said the former Slovenian premier Janez Jansa on Thursday.

“The initiative must be weighed well, because it was acceptable for Croatia to have an intermediary before, in order to continue their accession negotiations. The time dimension is very important for Slovenia, that the border issue be solved before Croatia enters the European Union” said Jansa for Slovenian radio, because premier Borut Pahor spoke to the parliamentarians about Rehn’s initiative at a closed meeting of the parliamentary board for foreign politics.

According to the words of Janez Jansa, Rehn as the expansion commissioner of the EU, by his nature should be more inclined to Croatia as a nation that is joining the EU, so that everything must be thought through well.

Due to Rehn’s initiative, the Slovenian parliament did not have time to discuss the protocol for ratifying Croatia’s entry into NATO. The parliamentary board for foreign politics postponed the discussion for Monday. This will give time to Slovenian parliamentarians to see Croatian documents and make sure that Croatia did not define its borders in their negotiations with NATO, which some suspected. Premier Pahor repeated that he supports the ratification and that it is the right time for it, considering that Jansa’s former cabinet agreed on Croatia entering NATO at the Bucharest summit last year. The discussion on the ratification of the protocol should take place on Monday, before the parliamentary sitting at which the protocol needs to be ratified by a two thirds majority.