ZAGREB, April 5, 2018 – Croatian and Bulgaria share a similar recent history of transition and they are faced with similar problems that are also encouraged by their surroundings, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said in Sofia on Wednesday during a meeting with representatives of the Croat community in Bulgaria.
“Croatia and Bulgaria have a shared, at least recent history, when it comes to transition from a system that was not democratic into the one that is, and from the centrally planned into the market economy,” Grabar-Kitarović said.
The two countries are faced with similar challenges in today’s post-recession period in which we want to achieve growth as big as possible in our homelands, primarily to keep our people,” the president said, adding that the problems she was referring to were primarily depopulation and departure of people, especially young population.
“It is up to us to create conditions which will make young people stay and return to their homelands, to provide them with well-paid jobs and the living standard that could be described as one of the most prosperous in the world,” Grabar-Kitarović said.
Croats in Bulgaria do not have the status of an ethnic minority as Sofia advocates the constitutional principle of a unified nation and does not recognise any other ethnic background of its citizens. This is a consequence of historical circumstances regarding the Turkish minority.
Croatia on the other hand has 350 members of the Bulgarian minority who have their representative in the Croatian parliament, shared with other national minorities.
