Category: Slovenia

Finally, with ten-or-do days to go until the referendum, the second instalment of pengovsky’s Definitive Guide to the Arbitrage Agreement Between Slovenia and Croatia :). For the first part, click here

Approximation of the Drnovšek-Račan agreement. Taken from this post

Campaigning pro and contra the Arbitrage agreement is vicious. I’m talking distilled venom of the Brazilian wandering spider here. From day one, there were direct hits below the belt, ad personam attacks, cynicism and sarcasm galore (iLike those, but still) and both sides, coalition and opposition, have embarked on an campaign trail rarely seen for a referendum vote. This will be a bitter fight that will do right down to the wire. So, what are they sayin’ and who’s got more leg to stand on?

Heading South

The case for supporting the arbitrage agreement is compelling. Slovene- Croat relations were at an all time low, just as Slovenia was headed for elections in 2008. Ever since 2001, when Croatian parliament refused to ratify the Drnovšek-Račan agreement, which was as close to a solution as the two countries ever caome, bilateral relations were heading south.

Border incidents were had a regular recurrence rate (i.e.: every time either country was in a pre-election period) and Croatia was establishing what George Bush jr. would surely have called “a new reality on the ground”, which peaked in the 2005 as then-PM Janez Janša and his foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel were apparently outfoxed by Croatian PM at the time Ivo Sanader, who somehow coaxed them into agreeing that the dispute should be solved in front of the International Court in Hague, which (so it is understood) has a tendency to solve such disputes by drawing a direct line down the middle of the disputed area, which would in this case put Slovenia exactly where it doesn’t want to be. It is still not entirely clear why Janez Janša at the time made the deal that he had made, but fact of the matter is that of all the agreements ever made, that one served Slovenian interests least.

Luckily, that was yet another deal that came to nothing, but at some point tensions along the border grew and there were several tense moments by the River Dragonja and even a police stand-off along a disputed area by the River Mura. And then, just as Slovenia ended it’s six-month presidency of the EU in 2008, Janša’s government started making noises about blocking Croatian EU negotiations until such time the border dispute is solved in a way that makes Slovenia happy. This policy was followed by the new government of Borut Pahor and as a result Slovene-Croat relations went deep-freeze.

Several rounds of negotiations were held between Slovenia and Croatia and PM Pahor was desperate to show that the dispute is not about Slovenia taking it out on Croatia, but rather that it has legitimate concerns regarding the border dispute. Slovenian position was not helped by the freshly ousted Janša, who vetoed ratification of Croatian NATO entry (a development which ran parallel to the border dispute) and a referendum on that was very nearly called.

And then PM Sanader resigned, Jadranka Kosor succeeded him and suddenly, there was more love between Ljubljana and Zagreb then one could fit into a Dainelle Steel novel. In a relatively short period of time (and with a little help from our EU friends, most notably Commisioner Olli Rehn) an agreement was trashed out, which set forth the rules by which the dispute is to be solved. It was to become known as the Arbitrage Agreement, the Pahor-Kosor Agreement or as the Stockholm Agreement

The Shit

There are a couple of neat things regarding this particular piece of paper, linked above:

Firstly, in Article 5 it sets the date of declaration of independence as the critical date. This means that the ad-hoc arbitrage court will accept situation on the ground as it was on 25 June 1991 as reference. No unilateral decision by either country will count any more. Technically this means that whatever territorial “gains” either side may have made in the last twenty years, they became null and void and that the whole process of drawing borders in the disputed areas will begin from square one.
Secondly, there are the infamous articles 3 and 4. The former stipulates the subjects of the arbitrage, while the latter stipulates the methods used in reaching the decision. In short, it dictates combines use of international law, equity and good neighbourly relations to achieve a fair result, taking into account all relevant circumstances.

And finally, there’s the word “junction” which pengovsky already detailed in yesterday’s post. Apparently, junction doesn’t have a specific meaning in the international law. Opponents of the arbitrage agreement point to this as the main flaw of the Agreement, hence liberal applications of words like “incompetence”, “treason”, “betrayal” and what not.

But in reality this is the beauty of this document. Since there is no convention (in the sense of “common usage”) on this word, the arbitrary court can twist and turn it, to try to come up with a solution that will enable Slovenia and Croatia to both have the cake and eat it. How exactly this will be achieved remains to be seen, but the point is that by using an unconventional word, possibility for an unconventional solution opens. Had Pahor and Kosor agreed on a more conventional word (like “passage” or “direct contact”) one of the two parties would have given in by default.

International law

Opponents of the Agreement are quick to point out that according to Article 4, item (a), the court will use international law to decide the maritime border, and then proceed from that point on to see what can be done to grant Slovenia access to high seas. But, so goes their reasoning, since the border will by then have already been drawn down the middle of the Bay of Piran, there will be bupkis that could be done for Slovenia, so we will have lost. Tough shit.

However, what opponents of the Agreement fail (or refuse) to see is to understand that articles (and indeed the entire document) must be read holistically and not only item by item. Meaning that *while* border between Slovenia and Croatia will be drawn by using international law, Slovenian direct access to high seas will be decided using other methods. Not *after* not instead, but while.

Even more: the dreaded phrase “use of international law” is actually much more up Slovenia’s alley than it may seem at first glance. Namely, international law is nothing else than a body of multi-lateral conventions and bi-lateral agreements. There is no world police to enforce international law it is not an accepted and rigid code by which everyone plays, but rather an ever changing mass of legal text which can bear more or less relevance to the matter at hand.

And this is where the Agreement becomes important. The moment it is ratifies, the Agreement will become international law and will as such be used as a legal reference point in solving the dispute. And since the document widens the manoeuvring area, it may become possible to still use international law (with Agreement now a part of it) and not necessarily claim that it prescribes the maritime border be drawn down the middle of the bay.

It is a neat trick, but to understand it, one needs to realize that international law does not necessarily follow the same logic as domestic law.

A Gamble of Galactic Proportions

It would be wrong to say that the result of the Agreement is a foregone conclusion. It isn’t. But we’re closer to a solution both countries can live with than we ever were in the past, with the possible exception of Drnovšek-Račan agreement. But one thing is for certain. If a satisfactory solution is solved (and this document goes to great lengths to point out that a fair decision must be reached), then the Slovenian political right lost a big source of cheap votes.

No longer will marched “on the South border” be held, no longer will police stand-offs be a convenient way to divert public attention. And no longer will the border issue be a free-for-all political platform in that political menstrual cycle we – for the lack of a better word – call elections.

Even more: In Slovenia at least, removing the border issue will most definitely put at least one political party at peril. Slovene People’s Party (SLS) of Radovan Žerjav is life-threateningly dependant on continuation of the dispute. They put all of their political eggs (note that I did not use the word balls) in one basket and now it is being taken away. No more dispute, no more SLS.

The situation is only slightly better with Janez Janša’s SDS. In all honesty, the largest opposition party is not nearly as much dependant on this issue, but as it tries to dominate the political right wing, the party and its leader have moved further to the right on this issue, so solving the dispute would mean a major drawback in voter animation and a lot of resources go to waste.
Curiously enough, the only one who will probably not get hurt either way, is Zmago Jelinčič of Slovene National Party. Although the leader of nationalists is currently farting in Croatia’s general direction, he and his »post-modern« politics are just as capable of supporting Croatia and even demanding the Slovenian constitution be amended to include special rights for Croatian minority in Slovenia. Whatever brings votes 😀

On the others side of the aisle, however, the stakes are even higher. Should PM Pahor pull this off and achieve a favourable result, he would have achieved probably the only remaining “holy grail” of Slovene foreign policy and quite rightly enter the history books. Which would be all the more stunning given the fact that a lot of people did not think he’d last a year in office. Pahor was right the other day when he said that part of Janša’s opposition has to do with the fact that Janša failed, while Pahor came oh so fucking close to heaven.

The Deal

So, what decision will the court reach? No one knows and those who say they do, are either presumptuous morons or lying bastards. Probably both. However, since most of you already think of pengovsky as a moronic presumptuous lying bastard, I’ll give it a shot 🙂

Despite the fact that the Agreement gives the court ample room to manoeuvre, there is only so much it can do. The closest two countries ever came to a deal was the oft-cited Drnovšek – Račan deal (see picture above) and it seems reasonable, that the court will revisit it. However, that will likely be the starting point, rather than the end of the arbitrary process. Proponents and opponents of the agreement in Slovenia are spewing ash and sulphur at each other at the rate that would make Eyjafjallajökull blush. More on that and on the latest polls tomorrow, but in all the brouhaha one thing sort of vanished from the radar: the possibility of a condominium.

Pengovsky has a hunch that what the court will look at is the possibility of declaring the famed “Drnovšek-Račan” corridor a condominium instead of declaring it a part of the high seas (as per the above agreement). I’m not saying that it will happen, I’m just saying that it might very well happen, because there’s only so much you can do to have the cake and eat it.
By declaring the corridor a condominium, both countries would exercise full sovereignty over that particular strip of the sea. Slovenia would have sovereignty over the part of sea which has direct contact with international waters, while Croatia would at the same time maintain a direct maritime border with Italy.

Tune in tomorrow, to see how the two sides are faring ten days before the referendum, what the polls are saying and why “defenders of holy Slovene soil” have such a hard time accepting the fact that the issue might actually get resolved.

Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of Josip Broz Tito. Normally, this would have been just another entry in the history books. But the fact that he led what was probably the largest insurgency during World War II, single-handedly tying down an entire Nazi Army Group, that he held together Yugoslavia which – ironically – died only ten years later amid the worst blood-shed in Europe since World War II as well as the fact that as a leader of post-war Yugoslavia he was ultimately responsible for post-was massacres and political persecutions, still make him a controversial and highly divisive figure. Which is why there’s so much brouhahaha about him these days.

Tito may be dead, but the slogan “Tito after Tito”, coined by the Party and the Army after Old man’s death to ensure their political legitimacy took on a perverse meaning in modern-day Slovenia and (I’d venture a guess) most of what was once Yugoslavia. The spirit of Tito lives on, being artificially kept alive by various politicians who use his name either as a rallying point or as a scaremongering tactics. No matter whether it is the re-establishing of Titova Street in Ljubljana or the fact that the political right (one party in particular) aims to do achieve nothing less than a complete revision of history of the last 65 sixty-five years. It is also highly ironic that – general Yugoslav bloodbath aside – two countries, which can without a doubt “lay claim” to Tito are the same countries which squabbled over a speck of land for almost two thirds of the entire period sans Tito. Josip Broz Tito was born to Croatian father and Slovenian mother. How’s that for a Slovene-Croatian dispute? 🙂

BTW: As most of you noticed, yesterday’s MMM went AWOL. While not exactly a substitute, perhaps the Old man in his younger days (seen above addressing a crowd in Ljubljana) will offset the damage. Even though I only caught 4 May by a couple of minutes.

Minister of interior Katarina Kresal on Wednesday last survived her second interpelation. Unlike the first time around, though, this one was close. Not only did she have some serious ‘splaining to do, she also had to cover her back within the coalition and that turned out to be no small feat. 38 MPs voted for Kresal’s dismissal, while only 40 voted against. Not the best of the result, when one takes into account that the coalition has 50 votes in the parliament. Luckily for Kresal the opposition would have to muster 46 votes (i.e. an absolute rather than a relative majority) and that was not likely to happen. But it wasn’t impossible.

Namely: Kresal wasn’t just being dragged through the mud because of canine affair (where crim-police found no evidence of a conspiracy and could not conclusively prove animal abuse, let alone of multiple persons doing it, however, abuse of power to unlawfully return the dogs is still being investigated), but also because it she signed a contract to rent the the building of the National Investigation Bureau from Igor Pogačar, a business associate of her partner’s, a mid-size real estate magnate and a person with a chequered past. This was in addition to all Kresal-related evergreens, such as The Erased, the general accusation of her abuse of power in relation to several ongoing NIB investigations, et cetera et cetera.But these were the least of KK’s problems. While she had her political enemies to worry about, it was her political friends she had the most to fear from. When Karl Erjavec‘s ministerial future was in limbo, she helped rock the government boat to the point of Erjavec falling out. Karl did not forget that. Furthermore it became obvious that the Ultra Affair was actually a power-struggle between Zares and LDS and that much of what was used against Gregor Golobič as evidence was in fact falsified or deliberately misinterpreted. That too did no go forgotten. Then there were here repeated PR fiascos, where every time when she found herself under fire, she hid before the media, allowing a hostile version of the story to float around in media and emerging only days later to share her side of the story, by which time she was already guilty in the public’s eye (case in point being the canine affair and her official car being caught speeding with her in it). And just to top it off she fumbled her speech on Wednesday, losing track of time and running out of it before being able to bring the speech to a close. It did not leave a good impression.

However, she got lucky this time around. Just as she tried too hard to show that she’s acting within the law, so did the opposition, which – truth be told – put on a great show. Not only did this interpelation read like a “Best Of” of anything anyone has ever said or written against KK, but also showed they finally mastered the tools of the 20th century and put together a 66-slide Powerpoint presentation (I assume it was Powerpoint, since the little flacid software giant has a lucrative deal with various branches of Slovenian state) where they – in a true reality-show-manner – pieced their claims together into a political shocker which portrayed alternately portrayed Katarina Kresal as the witch, the primadona, the elitist, naive, mischievous, perverted, sinister, corrupt and even as horrible a thing as being a woman(!) – with one single goal: to drive a wedge between LDS and the rest of the coalition. And they had some success doing it.

A year ago, after surviving the first attempt at her political life (for this is what it’s all about – to kill her politically) Katarina Kresal was at the top of her game. Unwisely, however, she decided to play hardball. By trying to quickly assert her party both politically as well as business-wise, she was making enemies left and right, top and bottom. But playing hardball requires a lot of political leverage and spare political capital to pay the dues later on. LDS had neither and this was the greatest blunder Katarina Kresal made: she failed to realize that a) LDS’s human resoucre pool is much weaker than it was six years ago, courtesy of b) since name of LDS carries much less weight than it did six years ago, when the party fell from grace, that it to say that it fell from being the most powerful party in Slovenia, firs into into utter disarray, then split up and is now the most junior partner in the ruling coalition. This could be offset by large amounts of political prowess, but c) Katarina Kresal personally lacks those as well. She (naively?) believed that if she stuck to the letter of the law in everything she did, she should be OK. This, of course is not how things work. Not in politics.

Say you’re a minister and you’re driving in an official car, speeding down the motorway without any official insignia (rotating lights, etc). It doesn’t really matter whether you were on official business or not, but fact of the matter is that your driver was speeding and you get pulled over. Shit happens. But still. Not wanting to pull strings you accept the ticket (that is, you instruct the driver to accept the ticket) and move on. You were fined, you paid, end of story. But sooner or later the whole thing becomes public. What do you do? Well, if you are Katarina Kresal you unwisely believe that you did nothing wrong politically, as you accepted (and paid) the fine. Wrong answer. In the public’s eye you did everything wrong, at least according to the opposition who is once again screaming for your head. And since you’re not there to respond with a statement immediately, the opposition’s interpretation of events immediately becomes the accepted truth, painting you yet again as the elitist bitch who thinks she can get away with anything?

You see where I’m getting at? The rule of law is a wonderful thing and you can achieve wonders with it in a courtroom, where KK used to operate. But in the courtroom of public opinion (what an ugly phrase!) rule of law can become marginalised if it is not backed up with some sound political and PR management. This is where Katarina Kresal and indeed most of LDS senior leadership just plain fucked up. Not just with this interpelation, but a year ago, when they opted to punch way above their weight, but failed to prepare for inevitable return blows. Or, if you’d like this put in football terms: LDS’ political offence is good with formidable striker duo (Kresal and justice minister Aleš Zalar), but their defence which, due to the small size of the team must be played by the same people, sucks.So, Kresal’s dues for playing hardball were cashed in last Wednesday. SDS’ little powerpoit tricks worked and some coalition MPs were starting to wonder why exactly should they support her. It was only after PM Borut Pahor reined them in that she mustered enough support to continue as minister. Still, MPs of Karl Erjavec’s DeSUS and three MP’s of Gregor Golobič’s Zares abstained, while Roberto Batelli, Italian minority MP even voted in favour of Kresal’s dimsissal (minority MPs, one Italian and one Hungarian, traditionally side with the government on non-minority related issues). The end result was 38 in favour and 40 against her dimsisal. True, according to the constitution the opposition would have to muster 46 votes to see Kresal go, but politically, Kresal would probably be mortally wounded if more MPs voted for her dismissal than for her to continue as Minister of Interior. Had that been the case I’m sure Kresal would bend over backwards in quoting article 118 of the constitution, which stipulates the 46-votes-needed provisio, but the political reality would demand her leave the office. Hopefully, she understands that now.

Not that her life will be easy from now on. Her right hand, state secretary Goran Klemenčič announced days ago that he will resign his post on 1 June. Apparently this was the deal all along. Rumours have it that he will continue as special advisor to PM on justice and security. But be that as it may, minister Kresal is losing her key aide, a man who is said to have been the brains both behind establishing the National Investigation Bureau as well as the law on solving the issue of the Erased. Plus, the opposition announced that she should expect another interpelation soon.

Delo’s Saturday supplement Sobotna Priloga ran a rather disturbing text on the upcoming referendum on the arbitrage agreement by Tine Hribar. The very fact that Hribar wrote a piece on the issue is news, not in the least because Hribar is viewed a member of core group of people who laid – shall we say – intellectual groundwork for Slovenian independence. His opinion carries an enormous amount of weight which is the primary reason why pengovsky feels somewhat out of his depth writing this post. However, there are things that need to be said.

Tine Hribar, Ph.D. (source)

To be honest, there are points where pengovsky agrees with Hribar. Like Hribar, pengovsky too noted the curious lack of a definite rejection of the arbitrage agreement by Janez Janša‘s Slovene Democratic Party. However, Hribar takes it even further and says that most of Slovene political right wing supports the agreement, either of their free will or due to outside influences. These outside influences, he notes, mostly come in the form of both the Vatican and the United States supporting the agreement. Then he switched gears and calls the referendum a charade, a scam if you will, and urges caution, since the Croat side was so quick to accept it. At this point Hribar’s writing and reality part ways.

The Croat Factor

Croatia was not “quick to accept” the agreement. Yes, given the fact that the whole dispute lasts for almost two decades, the agreement was concocted relatively quickly, but Hribar forgets (conveniently so) that Croatia was operating within a limited time frame which would still enable it to continue EU membership negotiations (so called accession conferences) and it was in Croatian interest to get a move on things. Furthermore, it was not as if Croatian parliament passed the agreement en passant. It took a deep cabinet crisis, countless negotiations, accusations of high treason and one very long session of Sabor (Croatian parliament) to pass the agreement. And even then with an added statement that the infamous word “junction” does not mean Slovenia’s direct access to high seas (in return, Slovenia declared that is exactly what the word means).

Some Most Slovene politicians suffer from a sort of inferiority complex in regard to Croatian foreign policy. Slovene media is happy to reinforce the sentiment and Slovene public is happy to accept it. In this picture Croatia has this world-class diplomatic machinery on a par with (lookie, lookie) the Vatican, which enables it to forcefully assert its interests and whose sole aim (apart from making Croatia a regional power) is to disenfranchise Slovenia in any way, shape or form possible. As a result, Slovenes should be wary of Danaans Croatians bearing gifts.

Curiously enough, Croats think the same way about Slovene diplomacy. If you feel this notion preposterous, just read any Croat newspaper for two weeks in a row and you’ll be surprised to learn that Ljubljana is home to some world class diplomats. The feeling one gets from reading Croat media is that Zagreb sports a rag-tag diplomatic core full of semi-competent people who have never heard words like “strategy” and “coordination”

So. Each side is convinced that the other side is trying to outfox it. It became the accepted truth of the past two decades and a starting point for any analysis of either country’s moves. While it is understandable that such a climate eventually permeates virtually every pore of a nations’ psyche (twenty years is after all a bloody long time), it strikes me as odd that an intellectual of Hribar’s stature whose feet pengovsky would be unworthy to lick, had he been in the feet-licking business, is unable to look beyond the constraints of daily politics and common-sense geopolitics (for the uninitiated: in political science “common-sense” has a negative connotation, not unlike “simpleton”)

The Foreign Powers Factor

History of the Balkans is replete with clashing of foreign powers’ interests. The bloody trail 20th century left in this particular part of the world testifies to that. In the case of the arbitrage agreement a lot was said about the role of the Vatican and the United States. Indeed, both countries are highly influential in this part of the world. The Vatican because it was one of few active sponsors of Slovene and Croatian independence (hoping for an increased role of Roman Catholic Church in both countries) and the US for obvious reasons: not only are both Slovenia and Croatia NATO members, the US also actively helped Croatia win their Homeland War with operations “Thunder” and “Lightning” in 1995, as well as the fact that Balkan carnage was stopped only after US under President Clinton stepped into the conflict. Therefore, the US – while obvisouly having leverage in Slovenia, mostly courtesy of former foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel – has way more leverage in Croatia which would probably still be one-third under Serb paralimitary control had it not been for the US and the international community as a whole

It is understandable that Vatican influence makes Hribar nervous. Not only is anti-clericalism one of his predominant themes (not that there’s anything bad with anti-clericalism, especially due to the dubious role Roman Catholic Church played in contemporary Slovenian history), but the fact that the Vatican has much more leverage in Croatia should make eyebrows go up. However, the Vatican support came in the form of Cardinal Franc Rode, former Ljubljana Archbishop saying that “since both sides are unhappy with the agreement it must be good” which is as muted and unofficial response as one can get. Remember, this was not the official position of the Holy See, but an opinion of a powerful clergy-man who is a) Slovenian and b) close to the pope.

Also, we must not forget that Slovenia is a member of the EU. While the Commission was “worried” about Slovenia blocking Croat negotiation process, unofficially some member stated were actually encouraging Slovenia to stick with it, not in the least because it a) curbed German/Austrian influence in the region, b) had and still have doubts about EU’s so-called enlargement capacity and c) had their own axes to grind with Croatia and were more than happy to see someone else take the lead. This goes most notably for Great Britain which has issues with Croatian (non)tackling of corruption, The Netherlands which has issues with Croatian (non)cooperation with the Hague Tribunal (the issue of so called artillery logbooks during operation Thunder) as well as possibly France on the issue of audio/visual copyright.

Point being that if there were strings pulled (and no doubt there were), it was Croatia that was leaned on much more than Slovenia. Not only because Slovenia is an EU member (this may have won Ljubljana some support, but also alienated some other member states), but mostly because a) Slovenia is playing ball in other areas and was calling in favours as well as b) Croatia was politically and strategically indebted in so many ways that it simply ran out of credit. Which is possibly why former Croatian PM Ivo Sanader resigned and was succeeded by Jadranka Kosor, after which the arbitrage agreement just sort of happened.

The Clinton factor

Much was said and written about a sentence by former US President Bill Clinton during his last visit to Ljubljana. Clinton (who, according to Robin Williams had the unfortunate accident of finding himself the only Jewish girl who couldn’t get a stain out) said that “Slovenia should be happy and content with the 42 kilometres of coast it has”. This was predictably taken as a direct snub and “a clear message from Washington” by those who oppose the arbitrage agreement and interpreted as the final proof of almightiness of Croat diplomacy (see above) which obviously lobbied for support in
Washington and got what it wanted. Hribar says as much as well in his article.

The thing, however, is that the whole sentence is taken out of context in so many ways that it hurts. First of all, Hribar should be aware of the fact that there is a tacit agreement between Bill Clinton and the White House that the former president does not comment on foreign policy, with his wife being the Secretary of State and all. Secondly, Clinton was visiting Ljubljana on a speaking tour, hosted and paid for by Diners Club Slovenia and was booked months before Prime Ministers Pahor and Kosor started their flirtatious relationship. Therefore Clinton was not “sent by the White House to tell Slovenia to back off”, even though the entire Slovene political elite was present at this speech. Even more, Clinton (who still enjoys the status of semi-diety in Slovenia) was careful not make his visit look like an official one, so he wouldn’t even meet PM Pahor officially. The two instead “met by chance while strolling in Ljubljana” thus allowing for one of the more bizarre scenes of contemporary Slovene politics (PM Pahor is “by chance going down to Prešeren square”, something catches his attention and he nudges his aide: “My word! Is that… No, it can’t be… But it is! President Clinton! My god, what a coincidence!” whereupon the two fall into each other’s arms and have a coffee)

Anyways, that is the relationship context that Hribar got dead wrong. Even more important is the content of Clinton’s speech which Hribar completely misinterpreted. The above sentence about 42 kilometres of coast can indeed be read as an ominous warning. Until one remembers that it was a part of a 45-minute speech Clinton gave on the subject of climate change and that the next sentence was something like “if the sea levels rose by a metre, you’d have so much more sea that the dispute with Croatia would cease to exist”. Ergo, Clinton was not “delivering a message from Washington” but was rather piggy-backing on his former VP Al Gore, stealing his material and trying to fill 45-minute time slot for which he was reportedly paid a five figure sum. The fact that his speech was rather boring and below-par only reinforces the notion that Hribar and those like him are reading way too much into everything anyone is saying about anything remotely connected to the dispute. Why is this?

Moving on

A couple of reasons, methinks. First and foremost the fact that – as much good as he had done and contributed to Slovene independence – Hribar failed to move on. It is  no longer just about establishing Slovene identity in relation to neighbouring states, but also about making Slovenia a responsible member of European and international community who is able to look beyond its immediate needs, however corny that may sound. Secondly, it has to do with ego. If the last piece of homework would finally be finished, the need for guidance from “founding fathers” the likes of Tine Hribar would be gone as well. While it is true that history repeats it self, first as a tragedy and then as a farce, it is also true that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.

And this is where the current arbitrage agreement is such a novelty. What were are dealing here is an outside-of-the-box bolution. Definition of “junction to high seas” does not exist. Yet both sides subscribed to it. Why? Because any other term that was put forward was rejected either by Slovenia or Croatia. If thinking within established parametres gets you nowhere, think outside of them. It seems that people who established Slovenia are unable to do so. Their role was crucial, however, they have – in this instance at least – outlived their usefulness. As things stand now, neither side has an absolute guarantee for success, nor is it guaranteed failure.

Whether Tine Hribar likes it or not, the arbitrage agreement between Slovenia and Croatia is the last, best chance for settling the issue. The odds are as even as they have ever gotten. And this is why pengovsky hopes that people of Slovenia will support the agreement on June 6.

Perhaps this way fantasies about Croatia “occupying” Slovenia will finally end. Today we celebrate the other kind of resistance against occupation. The one which made it possible for Slovenia to become an independent nation fifty years later and showed the world that this nation is independent, unbreakable and proud. The time has come to show that we’re sensible as well.

Happy Resistance Day, everyone! Smrt fašizmu, svobodo narodu!