Key individuals at Ina have told Nacional that they were surprised by the claims made by Slovenian politicians in relation to the concession in the northern Adriatic. In the Slovenian note published ten days ago, there is no clear indication on which issues are disputable to the Slovenians. This confusing portrayal of dissatisfaction is also a sign that Ljubljana actually considers the entire Adriatic to still be an unresolved issue, awaiting new succession between countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Ina states that detailed exploration in the area, which they believe could be of Slovenian interest, has not yet been completed so there is no certainty of the possible existence of discovering commercial quantities of energy sources. Exploration in this area is currently not a priority, says Ina, but geological and other denotations indicate that it is possible that Ljubljana is making a big deal over nothing.

Nacional’s sources say that the Slovenians surely cannot have any right to the already existing production tender and exploration tender that the Government extended on 5 January this year. Zelimir Sikonja, director of Inagip, a company founded in 1996 by Ina and Italian Ena to conduct research and natural gas production operations in the northern Adriatic, states that the Slovenians claim that there are no borders in that area, even though it is a well known fact that borders have existed for a long time there and there is no possibility of a dispute.

“From our standpoint, they have no foundation to make claims on the area in the northern Adriatic where we have a research and production tender. Even though the Slovenians never mentioned it, the only thing that we think they could try to dispute is the ‘point’ on the sea border between Croatia and Slovenia. We believe that it is already defined and it resides within the Croatian territorial waters in the Adriatic; that is why we are going to begin exploring the region with Italy’s Edison Gas. This area, which we assume is interesting to them, still has an exploration tender. It is still impossible for us to determine if there is a commercial quantity of natural gas in that area. Furthermore, the Government has prolonged the exploration tender in order to determine this correctly”, said Sikonja.

The note, delivered on 25 January to the Croatian Foreign Affairs Ministry by the Slovenian Foreign Ministry, makes no official protest that the exploration is near the border or for the possible overlap between the protected Croatian fishing and ecological belt and the Slovenian ecological belt. It simply states that the Croatian Government, through the prolongation of the tender, has violated the mutual statement by both governments from 2005 on the “undivided sea, sea bed and subterranean areas of the former SFRY”. Ljubljana claims that this accounts for “areas of the sea, sea bed and subterranean areas which have not yet been accordingly divided and portions which belong to Slovenia as a satellite of SFRY”.

Ina’s Executive Board Member in charge of research and development, Mirko Zelic, says that there has been no contact with the Croatian government on this issue because there has been no need. “I have no thought of reacting now to the Slovenian declarations because they are absurd. Slovenians have never approached us with any formal proposals or similar, nor have we ever communicated with them because the borders have always been clear. Furthermore, we have never had any cooperation from them in that region, and for the first time they are going public with something like this”, said Zelic.

He adds that the Slovenians have a right to form their own company in order to compete for the tender as can Italian, American or any other company. “If they get the tender, they can invest and explore and if it proves cost effective they can, alone or with a partner, exploit the resources in accordance with the capital that they have invested. However, there is no chance that they can cooperate in operations in the sense that they have the right, together with us, to issue a tender and profit in that sense.”

The region that Ina’s experts believe to be disputable to Slovenians is a part of the Croatian territorial sea. “Current seismic exploration is being done south of that area. We don’t even know when or if physical exploration will be done in that area. It is a well known fact that the more north you go in the Adriatic; the more difficult it is to find natural gas. The only area of the Ivona block which is being explored is the southwest area in the region, and to speak of commercial cost effectiveness is clear speculation”, said Sikonja.

In the Croatian Mining Act, there are two types of concessions. One is a research tender by which the right to research is received, and the other is an exploitation tender by which the right to commercial use is attained, if it is apparent that there exists a commercial quantity in the specific area where the research has been completed. “Ina had both the research and exploitation tenders in the areas of the northern, central and south Adriatic,” said Sikonja.

The Croatian Foreign Affairs Ministry interprets the confusing Slovenian note as an attempt by our northern neighbours to show how the Adriatic Sea and the right to its exploitation should still be divided among countries of the former Yugoslavia. That is the reason why the Croatian Foreign Affair Ministry delivered a sharp note rejecting all Slovenian claims and interpretations that the Adriatic is still undivided. After the responsive Croatian note, individual Slovenian politicians, not only those in the opposition, delivered a range of public statements which surely will not improve relations between the two countries.

The most rigid comment came from the opposition’s Deputy Prime Minister in Slovenia, Marko Pavliha, who invited Slovenians to boycott the Croatian Adriatic during their next summer vacation and that Slovenia should radicalize its relations with Croatia. Such opinion on Slovenian summer vacations was supported by Ljubljana as well, specifically by Foreign Affairs Minister Dmitrij Rupel who stated that this comment was attractive and that he has not spent his holidays in Croatia for the past 15 years. On the same night Rupel made these comments on Slovenian television, unknown vandals in Ljubljana damaged a car with Croatian licence plates, owned by Davorka Velecki-Cicak, an advisor in the Croatian embassy in Ljubljana. When questioned about the tender and delimitation of the Adriatic, Rupel repeated the old Slovenian standpoint that the borders have not yet been established.

This situation relating to the sea borders is partly due to official Croatian policy that accepted the Slovenian standpoint in 1991 that the two countries do not have a clear border on the sea, even though this clarity existed before the break-up of SFRY. In order to disable delimitation of Piran Bay, in 1993 the Slovenian government denied the border on the Dragonja River and sought the entire Piran Bay. The border on the Dragonja River was contested because over the past fifty years the river current has changed, indeed, not in favour of Croatia. Croatian negotiators have agreed to specific cessions in that case, but the entire Piran Bay was not handed over, by which the Slovenians could not have their own gateway to the open sea. That is the reason they are requesting it via Croatian territorial waters for which they have the right through international law, but only in the sense of a harmless sea passage which was not enough for them. After years of unsuccessful negotiations in 2000, Stjepan Mesic and Milan Kucan agreed in Ljubljana to give Slovenia the sea surface between the Croatian territorial sea and the international waters in order for Slovenia to receive a passage into the international waters of the Adriatic. The following year, Premier Janez Drnovsek and Ivica Racan initialled the agreement, which was never ratified in the Croatian Parliament. On 4 October 2005, the Slovenians, without agreement from the Croatian side, declared an ecological and continental shelf belt.

In their explanation, they stated that they believe the Racan – Drnovsek Agreement only took into account a part of international law and that the borders on the sea do not go through the centre of the Piran Bay. At the end of last year, Croatian Premier Ivo Sanader deceitfully played with the issue of the protected ecological and fishing belt, setting a deadline for agreement with his neighbours which sent the ball back to Slovenia. If the agreement is not made, the Republic of Croatia will appear correct in front of the international community because the country showed its good will. That is the reason why the decision on the extension of the research tender in the northern Adriatic is being used by the Slovenians for another portrayal of their foreign policy status in attempting to attain a better negotiating position in the future final problem-solving for the sea and land borders between Croatian and Slovenia.