Croatian President to Visit Hungary on Tuesday

The visit comes amid worsening relations between the two countries.

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović will spend Tuesday on a working visit to Hungary where she will meet with the highest government officials. The President travels to Hungary after the recent news that Hungary had blocked Croatian bid for membership in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Hungary has made the decision due to the issues with the investments of Hungarian oil company MOL in Croatia and judicial proceedings launched by Croatia against MOL’s CEO Zsolt Hernadi, reports tportal.hr on September 11, 2017.

Croatia has indicted Hernadi, along with former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, accusing him of bribing Sanader with 10 million euros to sell part of INA’s shares to MOL. Hernadi has rejected the accusations, but he has refused to appear in a Croatian court. Croatia has issued an international arrest warrant against Hernadi, who now claims that it is causing problems for his business activities. Hungary and Croatia are also in dispute over MOL’s role in INA, the Croatian national oil company. Each side owns a little bit less than 50 percent of INA’s shares, and there is hardly any agreement about the future development of INA. Late last year, the government announced that it planned to buy back MOL’s share in INA, but the idea seems to be delayed, probably indefinitely.

“I was unpleasantly surprised with the Hungarian position, and I will talk to Prime Minister Orban and President Ader. I will put that issue on the table so that we can discuss it a bit deeper. There are open issues that are not easy to solve, such as the relationship between INA and MOL. I think there is a way for us to tackle all this as mature democratic states,” said President Grabar Kitarović over the weekend.

The President will also discuss with the Hungarian officials the Three Seas Initiative, cooperation issues in the southeast Europe, and a set of EU-related issues, with particular emphasis on the problem of illegal migrants.

The President will also visit the Danube Commission, which is considered to be one of the oldest intergovernmental international organisations in the world. The president of the Danube Commission is Ambassador Gordan Grlić-Radman, while the managing director of its secretariat is Captain Petar Margić.

At the Corvinus University, the President will receive an honorary doctorate and give a lecture on the topic “A stronger Central Europe means a stronger EU and Transatlantic community: Croatia’s Contribution to our Cohesion and Resilience”.

Translated from tportal.hr

 

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