STA, February 23, 2018 – Prime Minister Miro Cerar has announced that Slovenia will launch the procedure to sue Croatia at the Court of Justice of the EU over its disrespect of the border arbitration decision very soon.
We will send a letter based on Article 259 of the Lisbon Treaty to the European Commission very soon, Cerar told the press as he arrived for an EU summit in Brussels on Friday.
The article says that a member state which considers that another member state has failed to fulfil an obligation under the EU treaties may bring the matter before the Court of Justice of the EU.
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"The government is preparing adequate bases for the text to be sent to the European Commission in cooperation with experts and a law firm as we speak," the prime minister said.
He explained that the Commission needed to be informed first that Croatia was responsible for an unlawful state. "We expect that the European Commission will take measures itself, otherwise we will do it on our own."
Cerar does not expect that the arbitration decision will be discussed on the sidelines of the summit.
Until Croatia does not change its position regarding the arbitration, Slovenia has no choice but to implement its jurisdiction and prepare itself to use legal means, he added.
Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec meanwhile told reporters in Ljubljana that everything was ready for the letter to the Commission that contains all elements for a lawsuit against Croatia.
Erjavec said that he would present the letter to Cerar next week at a meeting with the implementation task force, and the prime minister would then decide when it would be sent to Brussels.
