Füle hopes the meeting was a "key step into the two sides finding a mutually acceptable solution, which is...urgently needed", the commissioner's spokesman said.

At the meeting - arranged to avoid a deferral of the ratification of Croatia's EU Accession Treaty in Slovenia, which Erjavec has made conditional on Croatia's withdrawal of authorisations for suing Slovenia and its NLB bank over the LB issue -, the two ministers agreed to step up dialogue to solve the problem of the Yugoslav-era savings deposits.

To that end the ministers will meet again on 6 February in Slovenia, accompanied by financial experts France Arhar and Zdravko Rogić, who had met several times to look for solutions.

Also linked to the issue, Croatian President Ivo Josipović said in Zagreb today that Slovenia was not extorting Croatia by not having started the ratification process.

He also expressed the belief that a compromise solution will be found that will be fair on both sides.