April 24, 2021 - Commenting on an incident in Belgrade where the Croatian flag was removed from the residence of the Croatian ambassador, President Zoran Milanović said on Friday that such a thing, Croatia flag removal, could not happen in Zagreb.
"I thought an ambassador's residence was a protected building, and this is the case in Croatia. So I think that it (what happened in Belgrade) could not happen here. Croatia's law enforcement authorities would prevent it," Milanović said in response to questions from the press after he attended a special session of the town council in Križevci on the occasion of the town's day.
Croatian Ambassador Hido Biščević said on Thursday it was no accident that the Croatian flag was taken down from his residence in the Serbian capital city and that the incident reflected "part of the atmosphere" in Serbia's society, which he said continued to feed on hate speech.
Milanović said that Biščević was an experienced diplomat and "I hope that he knows what he is doing."
The president went on to say that Croatia and Serbia have several outstanding issues, and Croatia is generally ready to shelve all of them except the issue of people who went missing in the 1991-1995 war.
Milanović also accused Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and his cabinet of a stalemate in the process of the appointment of new Croatian ambassadors.
He said that it was Plenković who turned down the model of a 50/50 quota whereby half of the nominees for diplomatic missions are proposed by the head of state and a half by the government and added that such a model had been applied in the past during the presidential term of Stipe Mesić and the governments led by Ivo Sanader and Jadranka Kosor.
He complained about a lack of communication with the premier and added that this adversely affected the state affairs.
Milanović also criticized the government for disbursing extremely small outlays for the Croat ethnic minority in Serbia, which is why local Croats depend on Serbian President "Aleksandar Vučić and (Serbian) Radicals."
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