ZAGREB, February 17, 2019 - Theresa May is cleaning up the Brexit mess left by her predecessor David Cameron, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Saturday, sympathising with the British prime minister's efforts to take her country out of the European Union in an orderly manner.

Britons voted in favour of Brexit at a 2016 referendum called by former Prime Minister David Cameron, who wanted the United Kingdom to remain in the EU. He resigned after the referendum and left her successor May, who was also against Brexit, to agree a "divorce" deal with the EU.

"It was a completely unnecessary referendum and we are all living with the consequences of the bad political assessments of the previous British prime minister," Plenković said at a security conference in Munich.

"Frankly speaking, Theresa May is actually cleaning up someone else's mess," Plenković said, adding that an orderly and predictable Brexit was important for Croatia.

"We regret that decision. We think it is not good, it is indeed bad both for Britain and for the EU, but we are working with other members to ensure that it is conducted in an orderly fashion," he added.

Apart from speaking about Brexit during a discussion on the future of Europe, Plenković also discussed the matter with the European Commission's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.

The Croatian prime minister met with Markus Soeder, the premier of Bavaria, where 100,000 Croats live, including 50,000 in Munich. Bavarians account for one third of all tourists who visit Croatia.

Plenković discussed the 2021-2027 European budget with European Commissioner Gunther Oettinger and told him that the cohesion and agriculture policy funds and the security and migration funds were most important to Zagreb.

The Croatian prime minister also met with Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, and later in the day he was due to meet with Montenegrin President Milo Đukanović, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, and the head of the European People's Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber.

More news on Croatia and Brexit can be found in the Politics section.

The links between the United Kingdom and the European Union, which have existed since 1973 and the times of the European Economic Community, are about to have their nature altered. While tourism is perhaps not the biggest concern on both sides, the industry is worth billions of dollars, and it is certain that even the softest Brexit would be complicated, making travel more expensive for the British, reports Večernji List on January 23, 2019.

Although there will be no visa system introduced, travel may be affected on and after March 29 when Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union, including during the Easter holidays which will follow soon after that. Various scenarios talk about five to as many as 20 million Britons who might decide against visiting EU countries. The most significant concern can be felt in Spain, which was visited by 19 million Britons last year.

However, even the Croatian tourist industry seems worried, due to the general uncertainty, and also because British guests are among the best-spending. The British guest in Croatia spends 139 euro a day, which is almost twice as much as the Czech, Hungarian or Croatian tourist. Tourist trips are currently being sold provisionally since travel agencies and airline companies do not have answers to issues related to air transport, insurance, mobile roaming, passport controls. The European Union has announced that the British will not need visas, at least not initially, but they want to know what will happen at the borders with their passports which still contain words "European Union".

Veljko Ostojić, director of the Croatian Tourism Association, agrees that there are still too many unknowns. “This situation is a potentially great danger to our tourism industry. No one is currently aware of all possible consequences of Brexit, including us in Croatia. At present, I see two problems: strong uncertainty in the strongest booking period, and the possibility of weakening of the British pound, which would bring about a fall in purchasing power. If this happens, British tourists will choose shorter trips and cheaper destinations. Fortunately, there is no news that Croatian tourism has suffered any consequences so far,” said Ostojić.

Compared to the booking state of play at this time last year, the situation is more or less unchanged. There has been no significant increase or decrease, which director of the Croatian National Tourist Board Kristjan Staničić says is satisfactory. “The overall effects are still uncertain. But the analysis by the British tour operator ABTA has shown that the EU countries are the key destinations for the British, and there is even some research that shows the British plan to travel more than last year,” Staničić said.

The only question is where. At the London tourist fair in November, a number of tour operators confirmed that sales of travel packages to the EU were growing five per cent, but to the countries outside of the EU, the growth was five times faster.

Translated from Večernji List (reported by Radmila Kovačević).

More news on Croatia and Brexit can be found at the Politics section.

ZAGREB, Dec 13 (Hina) - The heads of state or government of the 28 member-states of the European Union convened in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day EU summit which will be dominated by Britain's departure from the EU after Prime Minister Theresa May managed to delay a vote on the Brexit deal in the British parliament.

"We would like to hear the position of Prime Minister Theresa May. Obviously, she is coming with the proposal that she should be given additional assurances. We think that the Brexit deal is really good, and now a lot of political effort is necessary to bring the deal to a conclusion. If that does not happen, the UK can request a prolongation of the deadline, so that a 'hard Brexit' does not take effect immediately after 29 March next year," Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in Brussels on Thursday evening.

"Anyway, because of this unnecessary referendum on Brexit, which was a defamatory and in many aspects a fake campaign, now the whole of Europe and especially the UK have a problem," Plenković said.

Other topics on the agenda are the proposed multiannual financial framework for the 2021-2027 period, which the European Commission delivered in early May, as well as migrations, the euro area reform and the fight against fake news.

More news about Croatia’s position on Brexit can be found in our Politics section.

ZAGREB, November 26, 2018 - Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in Brussels on Sunday that the European Union had reached the best possible withdrawal agreement with the United Kingdom and that it was illusory to expect a better Brexit deal on the table.

The leaders of the 27 EU member states, meeting at a special summit in Brussels on Sunday, endorsed the withdrawal agreement with the UK and the political declaration on future EU-UK relations.

The toughest part follows after the summit as the British prime minister needs to secure a majority in the British Parliament to support the deal, which at this point is highly uncertain.

Asked if the EU had a fallback plan in case the agreement didn't go through the British Parliament in mid-December, Plenković said he wouldn't speculate. "Let's wait for that moment to come. What's clear from the speeches of most colleagues here is that it is quite illusory to expect that a better text will come on the table. In my opinion, this is a good compromise which is very generous to Great Britain, which has decided on its own to leave."

He said that British Prime Minister Theresa May was in an unenviable position because during the campaign preceding the Brexit referendum she had advocated staying in the EU.

Plenković reiterated that the country's departure would hit the UK the most, but that the EU would also be affected. "The Union without Great Britain, a permanent UN Security Council member, a nuclear power, a champion of free trade, a key country globally, is not the same anymore," the Croatian prime minister said.

He said he was pleased that the agreement had been reached, but that he was not happy that this had happened in the first place. He expressed hope that the Brexit situation would discourage other countries from taking the same path.

"All this that is happening in Great Britain, all these processes are not good at all. They can't focus on any other topic and are only preoccupied with this, which is bad. I think that the lesson from this is that topics like this should be better explained to the public," Plenković said.

He mentioned British Eurosceptic member of the European Parliament Nigel Farage as a person who had had the greatest influence on the British public in this matter and recalled that Farage had also taken part in a 2011 referendum campaign in Croatia on the country's EU membership bid.

"Therefore, lessons have been learnt. Now we know what happens when something like this is initiated legally. Politically, anyone who would follow this scenario wouldn't benefit from it. That is more than obvious," Plenković concluded.

For more on Croatia’s Brexit policies, click here.

ZAGREB, November 25, 2018 - European Union leaders, meeting at a special EU Brexit summit in Brussels on Sunday, endorsed an agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union and a political declaration on future EU-UK relations, European Council President Donald Tusk announced after the meeting.

The European Council calls on the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council to take the necessary steps to ensure that the agreement can enter into force on 30 March 2019, so as to provide for an orderly withdrawal, Tusk added.

Speaking to reporters before the summit, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said that the UK's withdrawal was not good for the Union, but that it would hurt the UK the most.

"My position on this has been clear for several years now. It is a pity that this has occurred at all, but I think that this decision will have the most negative consequences for the United Kingdom itself, although it is not good for the European Union either," the Croatian prime minister said.

He said that since this process was initiated, it should be conducted in an orderly fashion. "That is why this withdrawal agreement, the political declaration on future relations and this arrangement regarding Gibraltar and Northern Ireland is the best possible way under the existing circumstances to regulate these issues."

For more on Croatia’s relations with the United Kingdom, click here.

ZAGREB, October 18, 2018 - The offer made by the European Union to Great Britain in Brexit negotiations is good and generous and now it remains to be seen what is acceptable to the Britons considering the political situation in their country, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in Brussels on Thursday before the start of the second day of the EU summit.

ZAGREB, October 18, 2018 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Wednesday that he would use the EU summit in Brussels as an opportunity to talk to European officials about the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) following the general election, given the status of the Croat people in that country.

ZAGREB, October 16, 2018 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković is very engaged in the process of reaching an agreement on Great Britain's leaving the European Union, but he is not happy about the fact that there was a referendum at all, British Ambassador to Croatia Andrew Dalgleish has told Croatian reporters.

ZAGREB, July 24, 2018 - Croatia supports Ireland in its efforts to stop the UK's exit from the European Union from undermining the progress achieved in Ireland, first and foremost the soft border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in Zagreb on Monday after meeting with his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar.

ZAGREB, March 3, 2018 - British diplomat Andrew Page, who is a coordinator of an EU-Western Balkan summit that is scheduled to take place in London in July, has told Hina in an interview that, after its exit from the European Union, Great Britain will remain interested in stability and economic progress of the southeast of the Continent and underscores that London would like to be a reliable partner of the "European project".