Grlić Radman: NATO Countries Think Croatia Has Changed Policy Because of Milanović

Milanović said on Tuesday that the Croatian Parliament “must not ratify any country’s accession to NATO” until neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina changed its electoral law, adding that he considered Finland’s and Sweden’s bids to join the alliance “a very dangerous adventure”.

Grlić Radman said the president’s statement had prompted a number of calls, and that he had discussed the matter with his Finnish counterpart on Tuesday and with his Swedish counterpart on Wednesday.

“With these calls we tried to contain the damage done to Croatia’s international political image,” the foreign minister said, noting that Milanović’s statement has been quoted by all leading foreign media and “all NATO countries have expressed great concern.”

“They always think that Croatia has changed its foreign policy if its president said that,” he added.

Unlike Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, who said on Tuesday that Milanović should block the two countries’ accession at the forthcoming NATO meeting if he thought he was “a tough guy”, Grlić Radman said no such veto was provided for and “even if it were, it would be political embarrassment.” 

After a country applies for NATO membership, the national parliaments of the member states must adopt an act of ratification proposed by the government, the foreign minister noted.

Grlić Radman said that the membership of Sweden and Finland, which are already compatible with alliance standards, should be separated from the electoral reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina which the Croatian government “strongly supports.”.

Finland and Sweden have Croatia’s “undoubted and unreserved” support, and their accession to NATO is a major challenge to them, given their tradition of political neutrality for centuries and the Russian military invasion of Ukraine which has nearly changed the world order, Grlić Radman said.

In his telephone calls with the foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland, Grlić Radman also touched on the issue of Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying that Croatia has their support and understanding. 

He told Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde, who recently visited Sarajevo, that Bosnia and Herzegovina was “a security, political and emotional” issue to Croatia because the ethnic Croats there were “squeezed between Serb separatism and Bosniak unitarism.”

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated politics section.

 

Subscribe to our newsletter

the fields marked with * are required

Email: *
First name:
Last name:
Gender:	Male Female
Country:
Birthday:	[DD] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 [MM] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 [YYYY] 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Please don't insert text in the box below!