Slovenia & “Taipei” to Open Economic & Cultural Representative Offices

STA, 28 January 2022 - Foreign Minister Anže Logar has told the parliamentary Foreign Policy Committee that Slovenia and Taipei intend to open mutual economic and cultural representative offices, the committee's chair Monika Gregorčič told the press after the session on Friday.

Gregorčič, an MP for the coalition Concretely party, said that Logar had told the MPs that a Slovenian economic and cultural representative office will be opened in Taipei and Taipei's reciprocal office in Slovenia. "It will be named Taipei," she stressed.

Opposition SocDem MP Matjaž Nemec said that the committee had reached a consensus on the two offices.

The committee also unanimously endorsed resolutions that Slovenia remains committed to the one-China policy, Gregorčič added.

"This message is undisputable, it comes from all political players and from the parliamentary committee in charge of this matter," said Nemec.

He believes that in this sense, Prime Minister Janez Janša is alone in his moves and in relation to China and Taiwan.

Today's session was held after Janša said in an interview with an Indian broadcaster that Slovenia was in talks with Taiwan on a mutual exchange of representative offices of the kind other EU countries had in Taiwan. He also criticised China's crackdown on Lithuania, prompting a harsh rebuke from China.

The committee also discussed an agreement Slovenia and Croatia have allegedly reached on the fishing regime in the Bay of Piran, as reported by Croatian media.

The committee urged the Foreign Ministry to continue implementing the border arbitration decision from 2017.

Nemec said that it remained unclear whether a potential fisheries agreement would affect the border arbitration award.

Minister Logar, on the other hand, only said when leaving the session that the "discussion was constructive".

"I didn't feel any major politicisation, which is good when dealing with important topics."

In a statement before the session, he said he could not present anything new to the committee about Slovenia's relations with Croatia or the fishing regime.