Josipovic Seeks Arbitration With Serbia, Bosnia

Croatian President Ivo Josipovic says if more time runs out, Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia should turn to arbitration to solve border disputes.

"There should be some more time left to solve those problems bilaterally but if we don't succeed that way, it would be wise to agree on arbitration about the border with each of those two countries," Josipovic told the Croatian daily Novi list.

He said it would be best if agreements could be reached bilaterally, without the help of a third partner.

"It could be agreed that each country proposes two arbitration judges and that they agree on fifth judge. After that, both countries would have to declare they would accept any result of arbitration," said Josipovic.

The President said that bilateral agreements on arbitration would be cheaper and faster than the arbitration process that Croatia and Slovenia agreed to in September 2009.

The two former Yugoslav neighbours went to international arbitration after 18 years of unsuccessful negotiations and after Slovenia blocked Croatia's negotiations with the EU.

In 2002, Croatia and Montenegro agreed on a temporary regime around the disputed part of the border near Prevlaka, the southernmost tip of Croatia.

Since then, both countries have signalled willingness to solve their remaining border disputes at the International Court of Justice, ICJ, in The Hague or the International court for the law of the sea, ITLOS, in Hamburg.

Croatia and Serbia have yet to agree on several points of their joint border, the most complicated of which is on the Danube river.

A joint commission formed several years ago to solve the problem has not made much progress.

Serbia wants the border to follow the middle of the Danube while Croatia wants it to follow the prewar cadastral municipal border. Thus, the Croatian line would overlap the Danube and run on the both of its banks, leaving bits of each country on the opposite riverbank.

Croatia and Bosnia signed a border agreement in 1999 but it was never ratified by Croatia's parliament, the Sabor.

Several years ago, Croatia said the agreement should have been renegotiated. Zagreb claimed that Mali and Veli Skolj, two small reefs near the Bosnian coastal town of Neum, which the agreement gave to Bosnia, belong to Croatia.

At the end of its EU negotiations, Croatia undertook not to block its neighbours' EU accession because of bilateral disputes in the way that Slovenia once blocked Croatia over border issues, or in the way that Greece continues to block Macedonia because of the unresolved dispute over the latter country's name.