Croatia and Slovenia are currently holding crisis talks over Krsko. Krsko was built when Croatia and Slovenia were both part of Yugoslavia, Since the country’s break up, the two sides have failed to agree on how ownership and management of the plant should be shared.
In 1999, Croatia’s national power utility, Hrvatska Elektroprivreda (HEP), filed a law suit against its Slovak counterpart, ELES, alleging that ELES had not paid it in full for the value of undelivered electricity from Krsko and asking for $137.6 million in damages. HEP filed its suit more than a year after ELES stopped delivering power from Krsko to Croatia. At the same time, the Slovenian company filed its own suit against HEP and said that it had no choice other than to stop the supplies of electricity from Krsko to Croatia since HEP had failed to pay for past power supplies and for its contribution to the plant’s decommissioning fund. ELES is asking HEP for a total payment of $50 million and the two parties remain in a deadlock over the matter.
As a result, Croatia’s Prime Minister has now said that he and his government will try and forge a compromise with the Slovak government over the next two to three months, so that the electricity supplies from the plant to Slovania can be resumed.