Original scientific paper
Reconstructing the Intractable: The Croatia-Slovenia Border Dispute and Its Implications for EU Enlargement
Thomas Bickl
; Duisburg-Essen University, Institute for Political Science
Abstract
This study seeks to reconstruct two crucial phases in the management of the protracted territorial conflict between Croatia and Slovenia over the common State border: (i) The causal mechanisms of the genesis of the Arbitration Agreement during the Croatian accession negotiations with the EU 2008/2009, and (ii) the conflict dynamics during the subsequent arbitration procedure before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) 2012-2017. The method employed is process tracing based on elite interviews (politicians and civil servants) and informal documents. The arbitral award from 29 June 2017 is the end of a formal process, but not of the substantive dispute. Bilateral conflict between an EU Member State (Slovenia) and a Candidate Country (Croatia at the time) creates de facto add-on political conditionality. The Croatia-Slovenia case has profound implications on the SFRY successor States and EU enlargement in the Western Balkans.
Keywords
EU Enlargement; Arbitration; Croatia; Slovenia; Serbia
Hrčak ID:
190336
URI
Publication date:
8.12.2017.
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