ZAGREB, 15 March 2022 - Croatia remains one of the safest states with the safest cities because "that's a tradition", President and Armed Forces Commander in Chief Zoran Milanović said on Tuesday, adding that Croatia had a quite high level of public security throughout history.

"In that system (communism) and in this system we have always been a country where you could let a child walk out at ten at night. It's been known to happen that some gangs in Split go wild and start shooting with Kalashnikovs, then nothing happens for 100 years," Milanović said at Zemunik Air Base.

He reiterated that the odds of a drone crashing in Zagreb again as it did last week were small, adding that he believed the Hungarians had learnt something from the incident and that it was necessary to strengthen the air defence.

As for the French Rafale fighter jets flying over Zagreb this afternoon, the president said, "they are welcome if they can do that constantly, because it's difficult to control the sky 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At the moment, probably nobody is doing that, not even Israel."

He called on Prime Minister Andrej Plenković to "restrain his associates so that they don't babble about the results of the investigation" into the drone crash until it was over.

"Once again I'm calling on, first and foremost the prime minister, who more or less watches what he says, but some of his associates act like silly children," Milanović said.

The investigation is being done by the General Staff's intelligence regiment, he said, adding that everything they knew he did, too, in real time, but that he did not talk about it until definitive data and conclusions were available.

ZAGREB, 15 March 2022 - President Zoran Milanović said on Tuesday he did not want Croatia to get involved in the war in Ukraine more than it should and more than it was good and safe for it.

He was speaking in Mravinci near Split at a ceremony marking 31 years of the BATT Special Police.

The president said that in 1991 that Croatian unit was small and depended on a small number of the right and brave people. It is the same in every war, including the one in Ukraine, which depends on defenders and stout-hearted fighters to defend the capital of Kyiv, he added.

"I say these things with caution and restraint because I don't want Croatia to get involved more than it should and more than it's good and safe for it. But I had to say it," Milanović said, adding that 31 years ago "Croatia did not have weapons, an army, recognition. It didn't have either the sympathies or the favours of a good part of the Western world. It was helped tacitly, if even so."

At that time Croatia could not buy weapons, not even smuggle them at first, everything started with the police because there was no army, and from that police the Croatian Army was created, Milanović said among other things.

14 March 2022 - President Zoran Milanović said on Monday that Croatia should invest more in its air defence system, after a Soviet-era unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) had flown in from Ukraine and crashed in Zagreb last week.

"The investigation into the nature of the UAV that crashed in Croatia is in progress and I would not discuss details. I call on others who address the media on this matter every 15 minutes not to do so either, because they should not have been at the crash site on Saturday," Milanović, who also serves as Commander in Chief of the Croatian Armed Forces, told a special press conference.

The UAV spent seven minutes in Croatian air space before crashing near a student dorm in the Jarun district of southwest Zagreb shortly after 11 pm on Thursday, damaging about 40 cars in a nearby car park, but injuring no one. It came from Ukraine, having flown over Romania and Hungary, both NATO members.

"Right now that object poses no danger to the Croatian public. I have drawn attention to the shortcomings of the air defence system before, and now is the right time that we start developing it , and fast, even though something like this is unlikely to happen again. We have seen all the shortcomings that exist and the fact that we can rely on NATO, but this is the kind of decision that we make," Milanović said.

He said he expected the government to urgently find sufficient funding for the air defence system, noting that cheaper systems should be purchased first, and then more complex ones.

Speaking of the possible purchase of the US Patriot air defence system, Milanović said that it would be too expensive. 

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - President Zoran Milanović is being updated about a probe into the crash of a drone in Zagreb, his office said on Saturday, adding that the blame is not only on NATO but the member states, too, although it is not the time to point fingers but draw a lesson so that it does not happen again.

The president is in contact with the leaders of the Armed Forces and the security services and is being updated on the course of the investigation and new information concerning Thursday night's crash, his office said when asked if the president was familiar with the details of the investigation.

Asked about the actions of NATO as well as Hungary and Romania, through whose airspaces the drone passed, Milanović's office said that the president stated his position yesterday.

"The culprit should not be sough only in NATO, the responsibility is also on the member states over which the aircraft flew without their reaction. But it is not the time to point the finger at anyone. It's more important that we draw a lesson from this event and that this does not happen again," the president's office said.

On Friday, Milanović also wondered how it was possible for an unsophisticated drone to spend almost an hour on the territory of a NATO member state without anyone seeing it. He said this event was an issue for the joint NATO command in Spain which should have all the information in the shortest possible period of time and react.

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ZAGREB, 10 March 2022 - A former commercial director of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Dinko Suton, will join the Office of the President as its secretary-general.

President Zoran Milanović's decision to appoint Suton has been advertised in the Official Journal and enters into force on 1 April.

At the same time, a decision to relieve Mirjam Katulić as secretary-general of the Office of the President has been published, taking effect on 31 March.

At one stage Suton was the director of the company Milanović established after leaving the post of prime minister.

Katulić, a former employee of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs who is now retiring, joined the Office of the President during Ivo Josipović's presidential term.

For more, check out our politics section.

ZAGREB, 8 March 2022 - On the occasion of International Women's Day, Croatian President Zoran Milanović on Tuesday visited the exhibition titled "Women and Technology – Exhibition of Gender Inclusive Themes", staged in Zagreb's Nikola Tesla Technical Museum.

The exhibition was opened on 13 November 2021 and will run through 15 March.

It is dedicated to the promotion of women who contributed to the development of science and technology.

"The exhibition made use of permanent exhibits from the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum and includes women that are not necessarily scientists, but professionally carried out work that is typically associated with men. Furthermore, the purpose is not to single out the contributions of individual female scientists and inventors, but to strive to give a broader perspective," according to a press release issued on the website of the Office of the Croatian President.

The exhibition presents information and the destiny of prominent women "who broke down socially imposed barriers and made a name for themselves in male stereotype occupations, and the anonymous women to whom science is indebted."

The exhibition shows that in the late 19th century and 20th century there was a total of 5,280 women employed in Croatia, with almost 2,000 being maids and 1,500 in trades and industry.

Between the two world wars, women accounted for 20% of those employed in industry. In textile industry, every second worker was woman, and most of those female workers were without any qualifications or with semi-qualifications and from rural areas.

In the 1970s they accounted for more than 30% employees in industry while the process of de-industrialisation in the 1990s first affected industries that employed women.

The idea of equal pay appeared in the mid-19th century, however, the pay gap still exists in corporations.

President Milanović noticed that similar pay gaps exist in the public sector too.

ZAGREB, 8 March 2022 - President Zoran Milanović said on Tuesday that he had never heard of Ivan Paladina, the candidate for the new construction minister, but that he could see that he was close to Russian oligarchs and that he would prefer to see a politician or an engineer in that post.

"The man has sizeable assets, which on the one hand deserves respect, but on the other hand, one always wonders how somebody's property was acquired, if they are not a top athlete or innovator but a broker," said Milanović.

Commenting on the fact that the new minister was not a member of the HDZ, Milanović said he saw that as a sign of caution having to do with the arrest of former construction minister Darko Horvat by the Office of the Attorney-General.

"When half of your government is arrested, with some members having been arrested unconstitutionally and completely inexplicably, you get extra cautious," said Milanović.

The ruling coalition earlier in the day unanimously supported Ivan Paladina as the candidate for the new Minister of Physical Planning, Construction and State Assets, to be voted on by the parliament on Wednesday.

Among other things, Paladina was also the CEO of the Institute IGH civil engineering company and the chief advisor at the Croatian Postal Bank (HPB).

On ministry's reaction to court decision on Burčul's retirement

Milanović also commented on the Defence Ministry's reaction to the Administrative Court's decision to quash its decision to send into retirement Colonel Elvis Burčul, commander of the Honorary and Protection Battalion, which protects the president.

The ministry said the court decision would have no effect on Defence Minister Mario Banožić's decision to send Burčul into retirement.

"The ministry's message is criminal behaviour, I do not consider it binding in any way," said Milanović.

He said that with its decision the court had actually told Banožić that he had made up the reason for Burčul's retirement and that his reaction was completely normal "for a petty thief and liar."

On sanctions against Russia

Milanović also commented on the sanctions which Croatia, as part of the EU's response to the Russian aggression on Ukraine, can impose on Russian companies and oligarchs, stressing that one should take care the sanctions do not turn into an act of retaliation.

"There has been in the HDZ, notably during (former HDZ leader Tomislav) Karamarko's term, a... group of people linked with Russians and Ukrainians," he said, adding that decisions on who could be subject to sanctions were very arbitrary.

"One should be careful with that and take care, regardless of what the document says, that Croatia does not suffer harm," he said.

ZAGREB, 4 March (2022) - Croatian President Zoran Milanović on Friday spoke on the phone with Chile's President-elect Gabriel Boric on the centuries-old ties between the two countries and accepted Boric's invitation for a visit, Milanović's office said in a press release.

Milanović once again congratulated Boric on the election victory and regretted that he will not be able to attend the March 11 inauguration.

The two said the Croatian community plays an important role in the social and the political life of Chile. Thanks to that community, Croatia and Chile have had centuries-old close ties, they added.

Milanović and Boric exchanged views on the current situation in the world, with emphasis on the crisis in Europe.

For more, check out our politics section.

ZAGREB, 1 March 2022 - Croatian President Zoran Milanović has supported Ukraine's EU membership application and recommended granting membership candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and opening accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia, the President's Office said on Tuesday.

"President Milanović believes that Ukraine should be granted EU membership candidate status as soon as possible," a statement said.

Milanović thus supported the initiative by eight European Union member states that had called for Ukraine to be granted candidate status.

"Ukraine is being subjected to aggression by the Russian Federation and we all need to provide it with the necessary assistance, just as we would have expected assistance in a similar situation," the Croatian president said.

"Croatia is not forgetting that Ukraine was among the first internationally recognised countries to recognise Croatia and was among the first to come to our aid," he added.

Milanović said that the fast-track integration of Ukraine into the European Union was one of the ways to stop the war and prevent it from spreading in Europe.

On Monday, the presidents of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia said in an open letter that Ukraine "deserves receiving an immediate EU accession perspective."

"We call on the member states to consolidate the strongest political support for Ukraine and to allow the EU institutions to take steps to immediately grant Ukraine candidate status and open the negotiation process," the letter said.

Support for Western Balkan countries, Serbia should decide

Milanović said that everything should be done to prevent the Ukraine crisis from spilling over to the Western Balkans and affecting Croatia and its neighbours.

He said it was in Croatia's strategic and national interests for the Western Balkan countries which had demonstrated their readiness and intent to join the Union. 

Milanović proposed to the signatories of the open letter to also demand membership candidate status for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and recommended immediately opening accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania, which already have candidate status.

The Croatian president also said that talks with Montenegro should be stepped up, while Serbia, "at this critical moment for peace in Europe, should decide whether it really wants membership or not and conduct its policy accordingly. The EU must let it know that this is a moment of decision."

ZAGREB, 1 March 2022 - The government has not proposed nor has President Zoran Milanović ordered raising the level of preparedness of the Croatian Armed Forces, the Office of the President said in a statement on Tuesday, stressing that the current security situation in Croatia does not require raising the level of the army's readiness.

"The President of the Republic is in close contact with the commanders of the Croatian Armed Forces and the chiefs of security and intelligence. The current security situation in Croatia does not require raising the level of preparedness of the Croatian Armed Forces. The government has not proposed and President Zoran Milanović has not ordered raising the level of preparedness of the Croatian Armed Forces," the Office of the President said.

Under the Defence Act, orders putting the Croatian Armed Forces on alert are issued by the President of the Republic following a proposal to such effect by the government.

The Office of the President issued its statement after Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on Monday night made a statement about Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

"In order to provide the public with accurate information and avoid alarming Croatian citizens, the Office of the President considers it necessary to comment on the statement by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković who said last night that 'the Croatian Army has raised the level of preparedness from the usual level,'" the Office of the President said.

Under the Defence Act, putting the army on alert implies mobilisation, organisation, security and other measures and procedures necessary to prevent and remove a threat of attack on Croatia and other threats to the country's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, its citizens and property, the President's Office said.