Croatia has no supporters of its position, but there are also no convincing tools to encourage it to recognise the arbitration award as an international fact.

Slovenia's expectations that as the guardian of European treaties the European Commission will interfere with this issue actively, resolutely and efficiently have not been met, Delo notes under the headline Painful Realisation.

Neither silent diplomacy nor the mission of European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans have brought any progress, and Jean-Claude Juncker has been making rather ambiguous statements. This is what makes Juncker's mission to bring Slovenia's and Croatia's positions closer together uncertain.

"The situation is particularly complicated because no compromise is being sought, because basic international rules are at stake. This is why there is no alternative but to bring positions, based on the arbitration ruling, closer together."

European diplomacy will have to find a way to make Croatia realize that respecting and implementing the arbitration ruling is actually in its interest.