Politics

ZAGREB, August 1, 2019 - Slovenian President Borut Pahor reiterated his view on the border dispute with Croatia on Wednesday, accusing the European Union of pampering Croatia like a spoilt child instead of insisting on the mutual implementation of the arbitration ruling. "The border has been determined by the arbitration tribunal and sooner or later it will be applied," Pahor said on his Twitter account, recalling that on this day in 2009 in Sweden, in his capacity as prime minister, he and the then Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor signed an arbitration agreement and that the arbitration ruling was based…

ZAGREB, August 1, 2019 - Commenting on President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović's statement in Israel that Bosnia and Herzegovina is controlled by "militant Islam", which she has denied, Zoran Milanović said that during trips abroad, especially to the Middle East, one should discuss such matters as little as possible, and added that he believes that this information "leaked from the Israeli president's team." "In fact, they (the Israelis) should apologise to Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, and she should pick her interlocutors more carefully and watch what she says," the Social Democratic Party's (SDP) candidate for President of the Republic said during a visit to…

ZAGREB, July 31, 2019 - Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović on Wednesday resolutely dismissed a Jerusalem Post article which says that during her meeting with Israel's president she said that Bosnia and Herzegovina was "controlled by militant Islam" and had "in some respects been taken over by people who have connections with Iran and terrorist organizations," which was strongly condemned in Sarajevo. "Absolutely not. I repeat, I didn't say that. With President Reuven Rivlin I talked in the context of what I'm always saying about Bosnia and Herzegovina and our neighbours and what I, after all, said at the press conferences…

ZAGREB, July 30, 2019 - During a visit to Zagreb, newly-appointed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that she wants to rebalance the European Union that can be strong only if it is united. My goal is to rebalance the European Union. East, west, north and south. Larger and smaller, younger and older member states, von der Leyen told a joint press conference held with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković ahead of their talks. We all know that we can deal with problems only if we are united, successful and strong. The world is calling for more…

ZAGREB, July 31, 2019 - The Croat and Bosniak members of the Bosnian Presidency, Željko Komšić and Šefik Džaferović respectively, on Tuesday strongly attacked Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović over her alleged statement to Israeli reporters that Bosnia and Herzegovina "is now controlled by militant Islam." The Jerusalem Post reported on its website that, Grabar-Kitarović, who is on a state visit to Israel, said BiH "was very unstable, and had in some respects been taken over by people who have connections with Iran and terrorist organizations." The paper was reporting details of her closed-door meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. "The…

As Novac/Goranka Juresko/Zlatko Simic writes on the 30th of July, 2019, amid last week's more or less positive flood of information on various tax cuts in different sectors in Croatia, the exception to the wave of joy came in the form of the announced new tax on sugary drinks. It was said at the time that this should have a "beneficial" impact on health, especially for kids, but also on Croatia's overall health budget, referring to the "experiences of other countries" that reached for a similar goal, although their actual results were a little muddy, to say the least. While…

ZAGREB, July 30, 2019 - Locating and identifying the remains of those gone missing in the war in the former Yugoslavia is primarily a humanitarian issue and must not be the subject of political dispute between countries in the region, Croatia's representative told his counterparts from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in Sarajevo on Tuesday with whom he signed protocols to speed up that process. Croatian Assistant Veterans' Affairs Minister Stjepan Sučić, the head of Serbia's office for missing persons, Veljko Odalović, and the director of the Institute for Missing Persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nikola Perišić, signed documents on…

ZAGREB, July 30, 2019 - Croatia is an exceptionally successful European story, European Commissioner president elect Ursula von der Leyen said in a brief address to the press upon arriving in Zagreb on Tuesday ahead of talks with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. Croatia is the youngest member of the European Union yet at the start of 2020 it will chair the Council of the EU. Croatia is an exceptionally successful story and it is model for many, many countries, said Von der Leyen. She expressed her admiration for Croatia's achievements and thanked Croatia and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković for supporting…

ZAGREB, July 30, 2019 - Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović met In Jerusalem on Tuesday with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and expressed her intention to raise relations between the two countries from a friendship to a strategic partnership. My main interest is to raise the level of our relations from a friendship to a strategic partnership, the president said after a tete-a-tete with Netanyahu. The two countries share common interests in security, defence and economy, she underscored. In the context of common security threats, she assessed that it was important for the two countries to jointly care about Europe and…

ZAGREB, July 29, 2019 - Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem on Monday, expressing deep sorrow for the victims in Croatia, Europe and the world and saying that the Shoah, the tragedy of the Jewish people, would and must never be forgotten. She also expressed sympathy with the victims' families and their descendants. In the Hall of Remembrance, she lit the Eternal Flame in memory of the six million Jews killed in Nazi pogroms and camps during WWII, and laid a wreath at the slab beneath which are victims' ashes. This was not…