Slovenia's government on Thursday named France Arhar as its financial expert who is expected, together with his Croatian counterpart whom the government in Zagreb is likely to appoint next week, to work on a solution for savings which Croatian clients deposited in the now-defunct Ljubljanska Banka during the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY).
The government's spokesman Anze Logar informed about Arhar's appointment at a news conference in Ljubljana on Thursday.
The 64-year-old Arhar, used to be the Slovenian central bank's governor until 2001 and he was recently named the director of the Slovenian banking association.
He was the central bank's governor in 1994 when the Slovenian parliament adopted a constitutional law to set up the Nova Ljubljanska Bank so that this new financial institution would not be burdened with lawsuits which Croatian clients lodged against Ljubljanska Banka.
Slovenia deems the debt of the defunct Ljubljanska Bank to Croatian clients as an issue from the package of issues concerning the succession to the ex-SFRY.
Last week, Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic and her Slovenian counterpart Karl Erjavec announced a possibility for the two countries to engage two experts to address this matter.
Pusic reiterated Croatia's view that the issue of the debt of the Slovenian bank to Croatian clients must not be connected with the process of the ratification of Croatia-EU accession treaty in the Slovenian parliament.
Erjavec recently told the national television that the two experts might set out their solution this September.
