ZAGREB, August 31, 2019 - President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said on Friday she condemned any violence but added that "not every incident which occurs between Croatian citizens of different ethnicity can be qualified a priori as an ethnic incident, i.e. ethnically motivated violence."

"I won't allow that in Croatia because it's very unpleasant and irresponsible when politicians start commenting on and labelling those incidents, either by ignoring actual facts that are established in an official investigation or by not caring about those facts at all. That's very dangerous because it causes a new spiral of violence, intolerance and disorderly conduct. I won't allow such political irresponsibility," the president said on national television, commenting on last week's attacks on Serbs in the Knin area.

The president's role, she said, is to be a factor of stability, to see that state institutions function. "In this case the institutions responded immediately, very efficiently and very quickly. If institutions didn't respond, it would be my duty to call for that, to call for a thorough investigation. This was an incident that is still being investigated. The police have done all that is necessary, they went to the scene, did an investigation, persons have been arrested, charges have been pressed against those persons. However, the investigation is still under way."

Grabar-Kitarović said she was in contact with the relevant authorities, that she was receiving reports, but that she would not comment on the details of the incidents as the investigation was still under way.

She went on to say that her role "is least of all to deepen divisions in Croatian society."

Commenting on Croatian Serb leader Milorad Pupovac's statement that Croatia was a factor of instability in the region, the president said it was "rude at the very least" and very irresponsible. "Unfortunately, Mr Pupovac said a series of untruths about his own country. He must understand that he is a member of the Croatian parliament, that he represents the Serb community in Croatia, Croatian citizens whose capital is Zagreb and not Belgrade."

She went on to say that she would announce her re-election campaign in time, thanking the HDZ party for its support.

She would not say who was her most dangerous opponent. "Croatian citizens must consider what they want in the next five years. Do they want work for a better Croatia, someone with experience who will work on that or do they want experiments?"

The president went on to say that she was honoured by the US Fullbright Association's decision to give her a 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award as their alumnus. "I'm working on the promotion of the Fullbright programme... What's good about the programme is that once you've participated in it, you have the obligation to return to your home country and transfer the knowledge you acquired."

Grabar-Kitarović also said that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić not only asked but begged that the expression "Great Serbia aggression" not be used, but that his appeal was not heeded.

Vučić said on August 21 that he had asked Grabar-Kitarović that said expression not be used all the time as it no longer made sense.

She told the public broadcaster that it was "very inappropriate and unacceptable" in diplomatic relations to go public with what was said in private.

She said "the Great Serbia aggression, unfortunately, is written in blood in Croatian history. It was just another totalitarian regime and should be treated as such. It failed, it was defeated. However, I want to say very clearly to all those who are threatening Croatia today that not one Serbian tank will ever enter Vukovar again."

She said Croatia would not be lectured by a country that had not dealt with its own past. "A state which not only hasn't admitted to the Great Serbia aggression and the crimes and the genocide committed in its name, but a state which is still hiding information on missing Croatian defenders and civilians which, for me, is a crucial issue of bilateral relations," she said, adding that "Croatia won't be lectured by a state which has rehabilitated the Chetnik ideology and Serbia's fascist regime from WWII."

However, Grabar-Kitarović added, Croatia wants stable relations with Serbia as that is, first and foremost, in the interest of the Serbian minority in Croatia and the Croatian minority in Serbia. "We must be responsible. I won't let us fall for provocation, I won't allow let us be dragged into a verbal war, but we will fiercely defend Croatia's national interests."

More news about Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović can be found in the Politics section.

August 22, 2019 – The largest Croatian American conference of professionals and businesses in North America will be held September 19 through 22 in Cleveland, Ohio. 

The Association of Croatian American Professionals (ACAP) is honored to announce that H.E. Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, President of the Republic of Croatia, will attend the fourth annual ACAP conference on Friday, Sept. 20 in Cleveland, Ohio and will give the keynote address at the gala dinner that evening.

The ACAP conference will bring together professionals from all facets of the U.S. and international professional community—such as diplomats, scientists, artists, engineers, medical professionals, attorneys, journalists, business executives, social media specialists, accountants, as well as a delegation from the Croatian Chamber of Economy.

“I am very honored and humbled that President Grabar-Kitarović, the leader of our homeland that we so love, will be an integral part of our conference weekend. She played a major role during our infancy in encouraging the idea of an organization of Croatian professionals in North America. It’s a special distinction to have Her Excellency give the keynote address at our gala,” says Marko Zoretic, President, ACAP.

The conference commences with a welcome event the evening of Thursday, Sept. 19 at the American-Croatian Lodge in Eastlake, Ohio, the heart of the Cleveland Croatian community since 1984. The first day of the two-day conference and evening gala and award dinner will take place on Friday, Sept. 20 at the Cleveland Marriott Downtown at Key Tower (1360 West Mall Drive, Cleveland, Ohio 44114). The remainder of the conference activities—meetings of the ACAP professional groups, breakout sessions, business spotlights, sightseeing and social activities—will take place in downtown Cleveland on Saturday, Sept. 21. 

Notable conference speakers include: Tomislav Mihaljevic, MD, Cleveland Clinic CEO and President; Elvis Grbac, former NFL quarterback; Josip Novakovic, award-winning author; Mladen Golubic, MD, PhD, Medical Director, Cleveland Clinic Center for Lifestyle Medicine; and Robert Jerin, genealogist. 

Her Excellency attended the inaugural ACAP conference in Washington D.C. in 2015. This is her first official trip, as President of Croatia, to Cleveland. 

“We are all proud of our Croatian heritage and President Grabar-Kitarović’s presence speaks volumes about her commitment to ACAP and Croatians in the diaspora,” says Zoretic.

For more information about the program or to purchase your tickets please visit: conference.croampro.com.

Association of Croatian American Professionals (ACAP)

The Association of Croatian American Professionals is a non-profit organization bringing together professionals, business leaders, academics, students and community organizers. Their mission is to foster leadership, collaboration and to promote the advancement of issues relevant to the Croatian-American community. In four years, ACAP has expanded to 12 chapters, including Cleveland, in the United States and Croatia with 750 members, and growing, worldwide. Visit croampro.com for more information. 

ZAGREB, August 22, 2019 - The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) presidency and national council on Wednesday supported Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović's bid for a second term as the country's president as well as a motion to candidate MEP Dubravka Šuica for a member of the European Commission and appointed Ante Sanader as the party's political secretary.

After the meeting, HDZ president and the country's prime minister, Andrej Plenković, said that the party's leadership decided by consensus that it would support Grabar-Kitarović's candidacy for a second term.

Plenković said that President Grabar-Kitarović would decide on establishing an election campaigning team, adding that Osijek-Baranja County Prefect Ivan Anušić is prepared with the support of the entire party to be at the helm of her election team.

"The second decision that the HDZ and its committees adopted today was to propose Dubravka Šuica to be a member of the European Commission considering her experience. She has been elected to the European Parliament three times - 2013, 2014 and 2019 and with her political and expert experience she will be a quality representative in Ursula von der Leyen's European Commission," Plenković underscored.

Plenković said that Croatia's public would be very satisfied with the department allotted to Šuica and that it would be known in two to three weeks' time.

Plenković described Ante Sanader as someone with a lot of years of experience and added that he could significantly contribute to the party's activities with regard to coming election challenges.

Asked whether former administration minister Lovro Kuščević was a burden to the government and coming presidential campaign considering the investigations launched against him, Plenković said, "He resigned as the political secretary and as minister. The HDZ that I am leading is continuing on its way."

More HDZ news can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, August 21, 2019 - Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has told a local Serbian media outlet that the Zagreb-based Nacional newspaper has reported correctly that he requested Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović to not keep using the collocation "the Great Serbia aggression."

"I told them: 'Folks, please do not constantly talk about the great Serbia aggression, as there is no sense'," Vucic said on Wednesday.

He went on to say that the Croatian president also forwarded her demands to him, including investing more effort in the search for people who went missing in the 1991-1995 war.

"Grabar-Kitarović particularly insisted that I should address the issue of missing people. In the coming period, I expect the first results considering this issue. It is not easy," Vučić was quoted by the broadcaster "Prva Srpska Televizija" as saying.

The Nacional weekly says in its latest issue that there was e-mail correspondence between the Croatian president and her former aide Mate Radeljić which revealed that the president said that Vucic had asked her not to use the term "Great Serbia aggression" any more.

More news about relations between Croatia and Serbia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, August 10, 2019 - Constitutional Court President Miroslav Šeparović said on Friday that he was surprised by President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović's response to the MOST party's request to call an extraordinary session of the parliament to discuss a vote of no confidence in Health Minister Milan Kujundžić.

The Office of the President said earlier in the day that President Grabar-Kitarović would make a decision on MOST's request if the Constitutional Court ruled that conditions for such a move had been created.

"If the Constitutional Court decides that conditions have been created for the parliament speaker to call an extraordinary session of the parliament and if the parliament speaker fails to do it, the president will decide on the request for an extraordinary parliament session in line with her constitutional powers," the president's office said.

"The President does not have the authority to call on the Constitutional Court to act in line with its powers and respond to motions put forward by members of parliament but she can, in line with Article 79 Paragraph 2 of the Constitution, submit a request for an extraordinary parliament session," Šeparović told Hina.

He added that "under Article 104 of the Constitutional Law on the Constitutional Court, the Constitutional Court monitors compliance with the Constitution and laws and submits reports to the parliament about cases of non-compliance with the Constitution and laws, which are formulated at sessions of the Constitutional Court."

"... in such cases, the Constitutional Court acts exclusively on its own initiative and when and if it deems it necessary. That is how it will proceed also in the case of the motion filed by a group of members of parliament," said Šeparović.

In a comment on the statement from the Office of the President, MOST said in a Facebook post that after she criticised the health minister by saying that he had not done anything in his sector for the past three years, the president "should have finally put her foot down and started practicing what she preaches."

"In a typical bureaucratic move, she has shifted responsibility onto the Constitutional Court, thus failing to exercise her presidential powers," MOST said.

Sources at the president's office said that MOST had set the course of action itself, given that it had asked the Constitutional Court for its position on the party's motion, thus opting to wait for it.

More news about the MOST party can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, August 9, 2019 Political analysts Davor Gjenero and Žarko Puhovski have described President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović's decision to announce her candidacy for a second term in office in the Hrvatski Tjednik weekly as "a very odd and panicky decision" and "an attempt to solicit support from the right-wing electorate."

In an interview with the weekly, which the analysts consider to be a newspaper of the far-right, President Grabar-Kitarović announced that she would run for president for the second time.

Political analyst Davor Gjenero told Hina on Friday that Grabar-Kitarović's decision to give an interview to a media outlet such as Hrvatski Tjednik was "odd".

"The President's decision to speak to such a paper, which has been treating her very unfairly lately, is very odd. Jeopardising one's position among voters of the political centre is not clever because elections are not won with votes from the margin of the political arena," said Gjenero.

He noted that the weekly in question "represents political views that are not part of constitutional parliamentarism" and that its view were rather extreme.

In her interview with the weekly, Grabar-Kitarović also commented on the "For the homeland ready" salute, after the interviewer asked her if "it is not abnormal that the salute under which Vukovar was defended is compromised while the red star is not". She said that "no symbol under which Vukovar was defended can be compromised."

Gjenero believes that this topic should be given less and less attention. "It should be moved from the agenda and not be discussed that way," he said, adding that ignoring the topic would make discussions about it stop.

Political analyst Žarko Puhovski said that Grabar-Kitarović's move was a sign of panic following the emergence of another presidential candidate on the right side of the political spectrum.

"This is yet another attempt by her to solicit support from the right-wing electorate, whose support until recently was reserved only for her, but now a man has emerged with good chances among right-wing voters, so she is forced to address them more actively," Puhovski told Hina, referring to presidential candidate Miroslav Škoro.

Describing Hrvatski Tjednik as a right-wing paper, he said that by announcing her candidacy in that paper she had given weight to it because all the other media outlets had carried her statement.

He said that her interview "could be an act of damage control among right-wing voters" but that the real question was if she could win the election without the help of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) whose approval ratings had been declining.

More news about presidential elections can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, August 9, 2019 - The Office of President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said in a statement on Friday that with regard to a request sent to her by the MOST party to call an extraordinary session of the parliament to discuss a vote of no confidence in Health Minister Milan Kujundžić, she would make a decision on the request if the Constitutional Court ruled that conditions for such a move had been created.

"If the Constitutional Court decides that conditions have been created for the parliament speaker to call an extraordinary session of the parliament and if the parliament speaker fails to do it, the president will decide on the request for an extraordinary parliament session in line with her constitutional powers," the president's office said.

The office noted that after the Parliament's Committee on the Constitution, Standing Orders and Political System turned down MOST's request for a special parliament session to discuss a motion for a vote of no confidence in Minister Kujundžić, party whip Nikola Grmoja wrote to President Grabar-Kitarović on August 6, asking her to request the parliament speaker to call a special parliament session in line with Article 79, Paragraph 2 of the Croatian Constitution.

"... Considering that 32 members of parliament who signed the motion for a special session of the parliament have asked the Constitutional Court to submit to the parliament a report on the constitutionality and legality of the conclusion made by the Committee on the Constitution, Standing Orders and Political System, the President calls on the Constitutional Court to act in line with its powers and respond to the motion filed by the parliamentary deputies on July 22," the president's office said.

More news about the Constitutional Court can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, August 9, 2019 - President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said in an interview with the Croatian weekly newspaper "Hrvatski Tjednik" that she would soon formally announce her candidacy for the second term.

"Of course, I will rerun for the presidency. I will soon announce it," the president says in the interview published on Thursday.

She said that she did not want to turn her back on Croatia now and that therefore she would not accept offers for more lucrative jobs abroad.

" I do not want to leave my Croatian people and my own children who see their future here."

She went on to say that she first and foremost counts on the support of the Croatian people and that she is loyal to the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) .

My loyalty to the HDZ does not exclude my loyalty to a wide spectrum of people who love Croatia, she said.

Declining to comment on presidential hopefuls she said that she would not conduct a mudslinging campaign.

As for the 'For the homeland ready' salute, the president said that all that is the matter of the intentions.

If this salute renews sympathy for the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), it is then unacceptable, she said adding that its use by HOS war veterans who defended Croatia in the 1991-1995 war could be tolerated.

More news about presidential elections can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, August 5, 2019 - Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović on Monday hinted that she would rerun for presidency.

"I am here in my capacity as the president of the republic, we will see each other in the next five years," the current head of state said in her brief address to reporters after a ceremony in the southern town of Knin, held on the occasion of Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day.

She also extended to journalists her congratulations on the occasion of the holiday, marked on 5 August.

Addressing Sunday's celebrations in Knin on the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the Operation Storm President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović underscored that the 1995 operation was an impeccably spotless liberating operation conducted by the Croatian Army.

During a reception of war commanders during the Homeland War in the presence of the state leadership, Grabar-Kitarović said that "we have to explain Operation Storm as it was, an impeccably spotless operation by the Croatian Army and police that liberated Croatian territory," she said.

Gabar-Kitarović added that Croatia's diplomacy did its role during the Storm operation and she recalled that a lot more could have been done.

Recalling talks with soldiers during her visit to Afghanistan, Grabar-Kitarović said that the homeland was defended while the enemy and dangers were far away.

Had Croatia been a member of the NATO Alliance during the aggression, Vukovar would never have happened, nor the war, she said adding that today Croatia is being defended in Afghanistan because if that far-away country falls, seven million people could be expected to head toward Europe.

Speaking about Croatia's defence during the Homeland War, she underscored that she had a guilty conscience. "I would have liked to have taken a gun and gone to the battlefield but realised that not everything lies in bullets and facing those who are in front of you," she underscored, adding that she was aware that she had a duty in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time.

One of those duties, she said, was when she worked as a NATO assistant secretary-general and explained that Operation Storm was a legitimate military operation.

She especially thanked former US Secretary of Defence, General James Mattis who, she said, said that Storm was "an impeccably conducted Croatian military operation that has entered into the text books of military history."

She expressed her condolences on every victim. "We were just defending ourselves and in the meantime created a military force and a feeling of unity," she said.

Mattis said in July 2017 that Operation Storm "is studied in the U.S. military to show what a well-led force, well trained, well equipped, and with good political guidance, how it can change the course of history".

More news about the presidential elections can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, Aug 3, 2019 - In an interview with Croatian Radio on Friday, President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović welcomed the tax reform, but said she was disappointed with it to some extent.

She said that she had expected greater tax reliefs for all categories whose income could have been increased "with other measures."

The president said that priorities could have been ordered a little better in the fourth round of the tax reform. "I advocate decreasing the tax burden on entrepreneurs and increasing workers' incomes," she said.

Grabar-Kitarović said she was unhappy that the recent government reshuffle did not include the Health Ministry. "The labour drain is due to working conditions and not wages. The situation in the health sector is perhaps not disastrous but it is truly in a very poor state and almost nothing has been done in the past three years. I am sorry that the Health Ministry wasn't included in the last government reshuffle," she said.

Asked whether she would uphold an opposition call for an extraordinary session of parliament to debate a vote of no confidence in Health Minister Milan Kujundžić, the president said she would not interfere in that.

She explained that her primary role is to ensure the stability of institutions. "This is a matter of the health sector functioning and I think that we need a good manager here who can, but need not be a physician and that objections by medical staff have to be taken seriously," Grabar-Kitarović underscored.

Asked when she would officially announce her bid for a second term as president, Grabar-Kitarović said that that would certainly be after the celebrations for Victory Day and the anniversary of Operation Storm.

She considers that the fall in the Croatian Democratic Union's (HDZ) approval ratings over the past six months has not affected her rating because she is a non-partisan who comes from that party.

The president said that she would like to go to a concert by Marko Perković Thompson in Split, and welcomed the fact that he called on the public to only wear insignia of the victorious Croatian army because the Homeland War is the foundation of modern Croatia.

"I think I would like to stop by his concert. I have never hidden that fact and I have already attended some of his concerts," she said.

Commenting on bilingual signs in Vukovar, Grabar-Kitarović said that they can be put up when the war wounds, which are still visible at every step, have healed.

"I support Vukovar Mayor Ivan Penava because we are all human. On the one hand his job is extremely difficult because he is trying to ensure justice for all, and we haven't faced up to the crimes that occurred there from Borovo Selo onwards," said the president.

She added that the judiciary was still waiting, yet she would like to see it embark on resolving war crimes.

More news about presidential elections can be found in the Politics section.