ZAGREB, February 14, 2018 – Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in an interview with the European online news portal Politico on Wednesday that Croatia wanted to make it to the narrow circle of EU member states and play a bigger role in forming the European future.
As the youngest EU member, Croatia wants to join the inner European Union circle, Plenković told Politico. The PM also stressed that he wanted to strengthen Croatia’s European orientation within the country.
I want to position Croatia as a country which in the first years of its membership is profiting from the cohesion policy and which, at the same time is strengthening the European orientation within the country, Plenković said.
He underscored that Croatia’s two most important strategic objectives were entering the Schengen Zone and the euro area. Entering Schengen is within arm’s reach and we can do that by the time we take over the EU presidency in the first half of 2020. The other objective, entering the euro area, is somewhat further away, but I believe it will be reached in the next election period in Croatia, between 2020 and 2024, Plenković said.
