Politics

ZAGREB, December 10, 2019 - The Croatian Democratic Union's (HDZ) presidential candidate Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović held an election rally in Zadar on Monday, calling on voters to go to the polls, and in a comment on her rivals, she said that some had sown discord for their own gain while some, who today sang patriotic songs, had been out of the country during the 1990s war. She said that five years ago, when she was elected president, pessimism reigned in Croatia. "Some used to say that Croatia was an accidental state and you know best how you fought for it," Grabar-Kitarović…

Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided on Monday that the Croatian Ambassador in Sweden will not participate at the Literature Nobel Prize ceremony in protest against 2019 laureate Peter Handke, who is best-known in Croatia for backing late Serbian President Slobodan Milošević and his genocidal policies. MVEP je odlučio o nesudjelovanju Veleposlanika RH u Kraljevini Švedskoj na sutrašnjoj ceremoniji dodjele Nobelove nagrade u Stockholmu zbog dodjele nagrade osobi politički angažiranoj u davanju potpore velikosrpskoj politici Slobodana Miloševića 90-ih godina prošloga stoljeća. — MVEP/MFEA ?? (@MVEP_hr) December 9, 2019 Croatia thus joined a group of countries who have decided to boycott the…

ZAGREB, December 9, 2019 - Under an agreement with representatives of institutions of all the countries that participated in Operation Familia and Eurojust, criminal proceedings against people who smuggled 600 kilograms of cocaine from South America to Europe and the Middle East should be conducted mostly in Croatia, the Croatian anti-corruption agency USKOK said on Monday. Croatia is in the best position to prosecute the organised criminal group whose members, including a Croatian national, were arrested in July while transporting 600 kilograms of cocaine, it was decided at a meeting at Eurojust, which was attended, along with USKOK officials, by…

ZAGREB, December 9, 2019 - The newly-established foundation "Josip Sruk-Sekularist", named after its initiator and donor, lawyer Josip Sruk, was launched in Zagreb on Monday. The foundation's mission is to acknowledge physical and legal persons for life-long contribution and outstanding achievements in the promotion of secularism in Croatia and to support the work of associations and initiatives which protect the rights of irreligious persons, it was said at the launch. "The motive for establishing the foundation is the fact that nowhere in the world has any democracy functioned successfully and never have human freedoms been sufficiently protected or progress ensured without…

ZAGREB, December 9, 2019 - Police in the Una-Sana canton of northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina on Monday continued bringing migrants to the makeshift Vučjak camp outside Bihać despite last week's announcements that the camp would be dismantled as totally unsuitable for accommodation of migrants, local media said. A group of migrants was transferred to Vučjak from a dilapidated former metal factory in Bihać on Monday morning. An estimated 600 illegal migrants are currently staying in the Vučjak camp, situated on a former landfill near a minefield close to the Croatian border. Last week Security Minister Dragan Mektić and the head…

ZAGREB, December 9, 2019 - Croatia and Hungary signed a cultural cooperation programme for 2019-2021 in Zagreb on Monday, covering all areas of culture and heritage, particularly care about the ethnic minorities. The document was signed by Croatian Minister of Culture Nina Obuljen Koržinek and Hungarian Minister of Human Resources Miklos Kasler, who is also responsible for culture. They both expressed their satisfaction with the content of the programme. Speaking to the press, Obuljen Koržinek said that the programme was the result of good and constructive negotiations and that it covered all areas of culture and heritage, especially care about…

Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman/CEO of the Nigerian Diaspora Commission for the government of Nigeria, responded to the allegations of two Nigerian students who came to Croatia to play table tennis and mysteriously ended up in Bosnia, after The Guardian article appeared on a local Nigerian portal. Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Intervened “The Minister of Foreign Affairs is on this matter. It’s not as straightforward as you have reported, but the Mimster (sic) has personally intervened. We should give an update as the intervention continues,” she revealed in a tweet on Saturday, December 7. The Guardian article titled “Police in Croatia…

ZAGREB, December 9, 2019 - The HDZ party said on Sunday presidential candidate Miroslav Škoro was a self-proclaimed sovereignist copying SDP presidential candidate Zoran Milanović, that he had been an HDZ member when it suited him, and that instead of HDZ founder Franjo Tuđman's policy, he had chosen the losing path of the Bridge party and his mentor Velimir Bujanec. "After today's repetition and copying of Milanović's futile arguments, we remind self-proclaimed sovereignist Miroslav Škoro that the only real, genuine Croatian sovereignist was Franjo Tuđman. He fulfilled that task when it was necessary, unlike Škoro and those like him who…

ZAGREB, December 9, 2019 - The incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who is seeking a second term in office, said on Sunday that her challenger Zoran Milanović of the Social Democratic Party represented a return to "arrogance and rows" and that another of her rivals, singer-turned-politician Miroslav Škoro, was "playing the tamburitza in America" while the Homeland War was raging. "I'm not bothered about ratings and opinion surveys. People will go to the polls on December 22 and show whether they want to return to the arrogance, hopelessness, divisions, rows and humiliation that we experienced ... from the candidate Milanović or…

ZAGREB, December 8, 2019 - Presidential candidate Miroslav Škoro said on Sunday he would lead a movement that would end fear across the country and that Croatia would celebrate December 22, the date of the presidential election, in unity as there would be no runoff. Speaking at a rally in Zagreb under the slogan "Now or never!", Škoro said that on December 22 Croatia "will vote 'for' after a long time," which would be the first step in "giving the state back to the people, and that there was no force or party dictatorship that would take the celebration away…