ZAGREB, January 10, 2019 – President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović held an official reception in the northwestern town of Čakovec on Thursday for the heads of diplomatic missions and international organisations and military attaches in Croatia on the occasion of Croatia’s international recognition 27 years ago and of the 100th anniversary of Međimurje’s secession from Hungary and its reintegration into Croatia, which was then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
In her address, President Grabar-Kitarović said that the reception was organised in recognition of all those who had contributed to the adoption of the resolution on Međimurje’s secession from Hungary one hundred years ago. “That was a historic day for Croatia and the Croatian people and that is why on 9 January 2005 the Croatian parliament proclaimed this as a day commemorating that resolution,” she underscored and added that today Međimurje is one of the most developed areas in Croatia.
Referring to Croatia’s international recognition on 15 January 1992, Grabar-Kitarović said that the Croatian people were given an opportunity to be included in all positive European processes. “Our aspirations for membership of the great family of European Union countries, which we achieved a few years ago, expresses our deep confidence and feeling that Europe has a shared future,” she said.
Speaking of many European initiatives that Croatia has been incorporated in, she underscored the Three Seas Initiative which has received support from the European Commission, the US and a new partner country, Germany. She expressed confidence that this will “have a beneficial impact on European and international relations,” hoping that Croatia will soon be able to have the same impact as a member of the OECD.
Among priorities in state policy, she underlined advancing bilateral relations with neighbouring countries and resolving outstanding issues, adding that Croatia will remain dedicated to the mutual protection of national minority rights. She said that as a signatory to the Washington and Dayton peace accords, Croatia is firmly determined to offer further support to Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina in their endeavours to achieve full ethnic equality and constitutionality.
“Croatia will also actively support and encourage all processes that will ensure stability in southeast Europe and for all its peoples and countries that so wish to join the European Union and NATO,” Grabar-Kitarović said.
In the year marking the 10th anniversary of Croatia’s accession to NATO, she stressed that our relations with other countries, particularly strategic partnership with the United States of America, constructive cooperation with the Russian Federation and China, further strengthening ties with Israel and expanding economic cooperation with other countries in the Mediterranean basin, are a continuation of our presence in international relations.
“We will certainly have an exceptional role in the China plus 16 summit which Croatia is hosting in April 2019 and which should deepen relations and ties between the East and West that started long ago with Marco Polo,” she said.
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