Slovenia Border Spat Imperils Croatia’s NATO Bid

The New York Times ^ | March 22, 2009 | Dan Bilefsky

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Planters mark the border between Obrezje, Slovenia, foreground, and Bregana, Croatia — and between a NATO and European Union member and a nonmember.

OBREZJE, Slovenia — Customers at Kalin, a rustic, 180-year-old tavern, can eat roast pork dinners here in Slovenia, step a few yards across the room to Croatia to use the bathroom, saunter back to Slovenia to pay the bill and end their meal on Croatian soil over a game of billiards and a shot of local pear brandy.

They can do so because of the vagaries of history and an accident of geography. To prevent any confusion, Sasha Kalin, the tavern’s 36-year-old owner, has painted a fluorescent-yellow line across the floor to delineate the very spot, next to a pool table, where the border between Slovenia and Croatia bisects the property.

Tipsy customers who step outside and accidentally walk through a row of plants in concrete pots demarcating the border are stopped by unsmiling and armed Croatian border guards.

“This is the Balkans, so every little piece of land counts,” said Mr. Kalin, whose father is a Slovene and whose mother is a Croat, and who woke up one day in May 2004 to find that the Slovenian half of his restaurant was in the European Union and the Croatian half was not.

Where Slovenia ends and Croatia begins might appear to be an arcane regional concern. But it has suddenly taken on geopolitical significance, with a border dispute dating to the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s now threatening to stall the eastward push of the European Union and NATO.

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[eleni121]

These silly events only serve to underscore the explosive passions that can ignite at any time.

The only salvation for the West (and for Southeastern Europe) is that the Balkan region again takes on the role as a buffer between Asiatic muslim hordes and freedom as they did during the Byzantine Empire allowing the west to develop in relative peace and freedom. Slovenia and Serbia and Greece hopefully Bulgaria and FYROM need to get their collective interests in order and unite.

Time after time the west has abandoned Eastern Europe left to deal with the hordes alone. The next time they are abandoned will be the last. In fact, the latest abandonment is already clear and present.