Croatia, Slovenia accept border arbiters

A long-running border dispute with Slovenia that threatened to derail Croatia's accession to the European Union moved closer to a resolution this week. Slovenia and Croatia agreed in Brussels Tuesday on the makeup of an EU-sponsored tribunal appointed to arbitrate an argument over a small bay in the Adriatic Sea that dates to the collapse of Yugoslavia. EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule said the two sides agreed on who would serve as president as well as on two other members of the panel -- candidates contained on a list of possible arbiters drawn up by Fule and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. Tapped as president of the court was Gilbert Guillaume, a Frenchman who previously served as president of the International Court of Justice. German jurist Bruno Simma and British academic Vaughan Lowe also were named to the court, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. The two countries will name one more member each as they try to resolve the decades-old disagreement over Piran Bay, an 8-square-mile body of water that Slovenia highly values as one of the few outlets to international waters along its short, 29-mile Adriatic seacoast. Croatia maintains the international border should placed down the center of the bay but Slovenia said such a move wouldn't leave it enough room for direct access to international shipping lanes for its sea traffic. EU-member Slovenia in 2009 blocked Croatia's EU accession talks, claiming Zagreb was attempting to prejudice the European Commission in its favor on the dispute. Fule welcomed the agreement as a landmark development in resolving the dispute, the Brussels weekly New Europe reported. "This common agreement is a very welcome signal for the positive development of the good neighborly relations between the two countries as well as for the Western Balkans regions showing that even difficult issues can be best solved by means of dialogue and co-operation," he said. Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said the agreement only was arrived at after an "intense" round of diplomatic meetings, made more urgent because of Sunday's looming referendum on EU accession in Croatia. The deal to accept arbitration with Slovenia, he said, could help motivate a higher turnout for the referendum, which Croatian President Ivo Josipovic strongly supports. "Croatia's membership will ensure a solid base to fully use the creative potential of our young country," Josipovic told ANSA Tuesday. Croatia and Slovakia agreed in Stockholm in 2009 to submit the border dispute to binding arbitration. A year later, Slovenes narrowly approved a national referendum in support of the agreement. Just less than 52 percent of the vote favored the arbitration deal. That election was after the parliaments of both countries had approved the deal. But center-right opposition parties in Ljubljana opposed the agreement as a "capitulation" to Zagreb, and Slovene Prime Minister Borut Pahor agreed to hold the referendum as a compromise, the BBC reported.