Slovenia, Croatia Seek End to Bank Dispute as EU Entry Nears

Bloomberg

7/10/2010

Slovenia and Croatia agreed to seek ways to allow Ljubljana-based Nova Ljubljanska Banka d.d. to operate 
in Croatia as closer ties between the former Yugoslav countries may speed Croatia’s entry to the European 
Union.
Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor will meet his Croatian counterpart, Jadranka Kosor, on July 31 
at Bohinj, a mountain resort in Slovenia, to resolve a dispute involving Slovenia’s largest bank that 
dates from before the breakup of Federal Yugoslavia in 1991, Pahor said today.

“There’s great hope we will be able to settle this complex dispute after both countries consult experts 
and institutions, especially on the Croatian side,” Pahor told reporters at a meeting of Balkan and European 
Union officials at Dubrovnik, on Croatia’s Adriatic coast. “Croatia will then be able to complete talks 
with the EU on the free movement of capital.”

Croatia last month moved closer to becoming the EU’s 28th member by opening entry talks in three policy 
areas. It aims to complete the negotiations by early 2011, Kosor said today, thus becoming the second 
former Yugoslav nation to join the trading bloc after Slovenia, which entered in 2004.

Nova Ljubljanska, Slovenia’s largest bank with units in most of the former Yugoslavia, is barred from 
operating in Croatia because its communist-era predecessor owes Croatian savers hundreds of millions 
of euros from before the Federation’s breakup. Croatian central bank Governor Zeljko Rohatinski has said 
he won’t allow NLB to do business there before the issue is settled.

Relations between Slovenia and Croatia have improved since both nations agreed in September to settle 
a border dispute by international arbitration. Before that, a Slovenian veto had blocked Croatia’s EU 
accession bid for 10 months.