ZAGREB, July 5, 2018 – The government on Thursday proclaimed activities related to Croatia’s EU chairmanship in the first half of 2020 to be of special significance for the newest EU member-state.
“Considering that there is less than two years to prepare for this demanding and extensive project, it is necessary to urgently decide on several strategic and operational and logistic issues,” a press release from the government said.
The Foreign and European Affairs Ministry is the coordinator of all activities related to the preparation and implementation of the chairmanship and it has been decided that anything to do with those preparations takes priority in state administration. “This is the biggest task for the state administration in the modern Croatian state,” Foreign and European Affairs Minister Marija Pejčinović Burić said.
A special council will be set up as the umbrella body for all the preparations and will be responsible for strategic decisions and guidelines in the process of preparing and implementing the chairmanship. The prime minister will head that council.
It is expected that during Croatia’s chairmanship there will be about 1,400 various meetings at all levels in Brussels, and Croatia will hold at least one summit of heads of states and governments of EU member states, about 20 meetings and conferences at the ministerial level and 200 to 250 meetings at the technical level.
“That is on average 12 to 13 meetings every day that Croatia will preside. That shows the complexity of this job,” Pejčinović Burić said.
Experience has shown that, during the chairmanship of the Council of the EU, there should be one central conference centre where most high-level meetings are conducted and several other premises for expert meetings.
As Croatia currently doesn’t have a congress centre of that nature, the once planned congress centre within the National University Library will be equipped for that purpose, the government decided.
