ZAGREB, October 5, 2018 – President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović issued on Friday a message for Independence Day, which is observed on October 8, saying that although Croatia has achieved many successes since the declaration of independence in 1991, it wants more prosperity.
“We want a country in which everyone will be appreciated on the basis of their work and contribution to the common good, in which our children and youth will have guaranteed prospects of good education, employment and fair pay, and families will have all the necessary conditions for having and raising children. We want a Croatia in which there will be more patriotic unity, solidarity and mutual respect,” the president said.
“During the years of independence we have achieved brilliant successes in many areas of national and social development, but we know that we have excellent development potential and that’s why we want more and better,” she said, adding that “we have a history that inspires us and a future that obliges us.”
Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković underscored that the 1991-1995 war of independence and its values lay the foundations for the present-day Croatia. It is our duty and responsibility to preserve freedom and democracy and bequeath those values to the coming generations, Jandroković writes in his message.
On Monday, during Independence Day, several events will be organised to mark the holiday, and the parliament will open its doors to members of the public.
On 8 October 1991 the Croatian parliament unanimously decided to sever all state and legal ties based on which Croatia and the other republics and provinces made up the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). The decision was adopted three months after the Brijuni Declaration whereby Croatia committed to a three-month postponement of the declaration of independence and sovereignty at the request of the European Community, which demanded the Yugoslav crisis be solved peacefully.
That moratorium expired on 7 October 1991, when the former Yugoslav People’s Army shelled the Croatian government building in Zagreb with the intention to kill the first Croatian President, Franjo Tuđman, and the members of the then government and parliament. The attack took place at 3.03 p.m. One person was killed and four were injured.
Jandroković says that the decisions made by the legislature on 8 October 1991, show that the Croatian parliament (Sabor) is the true bearer and guardian of the sovereignty of the Croatian people and of the legal order.
Today, when we have an independent Croatian state, it is our responsibility and interest to make sure that all of us, in the spirit of mutual respect, build Croatian as a safe and prosperous country with strong institutions, the rule of law and social welfare, a country that is economically developed a demographically revived, with the prominent social sentiment for justice and solidarity, the protection of family and family values and creation of conditions to empower the youth, the parliament speaker says in his message.
