ZAGREB (Croatia), June 29 (SeeNews) – Croatia's prime minister Andrej Plenkovic said the final ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague on the territorial and maritime dispute between Croatia and Slovenia, due to be delivered on Thursday, will have no affect on the country.
"Whatever the verdict, Croatia will not be bound to it in any way," Plenkovic said during a government session aired live on its website.
He added that Croatian representative will not be in court this afternoon as PCA delivers its findings, after in 2015 the country withdrew from the arbitration due to what it described as "serious violations of the arbitration procedure" on behalf of Slovenia.
On November 4, 2009, the governments of Croatia and Slovenia signed an agreement to submit their territorial and maritime dispute to arbitration, after they were unable to resolve it themselves.
The Tribunal was called upon to determine the course of the maritime and land boundary between Croatia and Slovenia, Slovenia’s junction to the High Sea and the regime for the use of the relevant maritime areas.
The arbitration proceedings began in early 2012.
Croatia withdrew from the arbitration agreement in 2015, following a scandal concerning leaked phone recordings between Slovenia's arbitrator Jernej Sekolec and an official in the country's foreign ministry, Simona Drenik. At the time, Croatia said the trial was compromised and made a recommendation to Slovenia to commence alternative negotiations. Sekolec and Drenik resigned, but Croatia expected the tribunal to dissolve itself, terminating the process. This, however, did not happen.
Although there is no mechanism of coercion for the implementation of PCA's arbitration rulings with parties left to enforce the court's decisions voluntarily, Slovenia is looking for support from the EU to push Croatia to comply, local media have reported.
The European Commission has said it generally supports such arbitration processes due to legal security, but would back a bilateral solution.
The PCA is an independent intergovernmental organisation established by the 1899 Hague Convention on the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes.