Croatian Finance Minister Slavko Linic has said that negotiations on the issue of the now defunct Ljubljanska Banka (LB) between Croatia and Slovenia are still under way which is why he does not want to comment on the mater as he does not intend to make the situation for the negotiators more difficult,
"The (issue) of Ljubljanska Banka is not yet settled, the negotiations are still under way," Linic said in Brussels on Tuesday when asked by reporters about his position on the developments regarding this dispute between the two neighbours, which is holding back the ratification of Croatia's European Union Treaty in the Slovenian parliament.
"Commenting on the matter in advance would only render the situation more difficult for the people conducting negotiations," the Croatian minister said, who arrived in Brussels for a conference of European Union finance ministers.
After their meeting in Slovenia on 6 February, Croatian and Slovenian foreign ministers Vesna Pusic and Karl Erjavec said that they had found a solution to this issue but that they could not make it public until their respective governments approved their agreement.
On that occasion, Minister Pusic said that the solution contained several sub-models how to settle the debt regarding the Yugoslav-era savings of Croatian clients in LB subsidiaries in Croatia.
The next Pusic-Erjavec meeting is scheduled for 19 February should Zagreb and Ljubljana give the go-ahead to their proposal for settling this issue.
