After his meeting with President Pahor, President Milanović states: Relations between Croatia and Slovenia are incredibly important, it would be great if we had such relations with our other neighbours
“I’m glad you chose Croatia as your last visit in your long ten-year term as President of Slovenia, I know it’s not by accident. I regret to see you leaving this office, but a democratically elected President of the Republic of Slovenia is succeeding you, and I hope our cooperation will be at least as good. Relations between Zagreb and Ljubljana, Croatia and Slovenia are incredibly important, from a Croatian perspective and from mine”, the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović said in his statement to the media after his meeting with Slovenia President Borut Pahor, who is paying a two-day State visit to Croatia.
Adding that relations with all neighbours are important, President Milanović underlined that relations between Zagreb and Ljubljana carry special weight.
“We have to work to make them what they are today, in the last two tothree years definitely better, and the quality and dynamics are growing. This cannot be just the result of our relations and our contacts, which were numerous and intensive, the governments deserve credit too. And the overall atmosphere in the relations between the two states, which began to unravel – following years of misunderstandings, perhaps inadequate dialogue – except for the signing of the arbitration agreement that later had the fate it had. Since then, with some ups and downs, we currently have a continuity of excellent relations. In this sense Slovenia is Croatia’s best neighbour, this is important. It would be great if we had such relations with our other neighbours, unfortunately we don’t and I don’t know whether we will soon”, President Milanović stated.
President Pahor thanked President Milanović for what he said about Slovenia and him, and stressed the excellent cooperation between Slovenia and Croatia.
“It’s not by accident that I wanted my last official visit to be to Croatia. Of the four neighbours I paid most attention to Croatia because I was confident that European foreign policy begins with one’s neighbours and we must have friendly and good allied relations with our neighbours. We don’t know what the future around us will be, but as much as we can influence events, we have to ensure that these relations are on a level of understanding and trust so that circumstances can turn in the direction of our efforts. As President of the Republic of Slovenia, in the past ten years I had 55 meetings with Croatian representatives. I think I’ve been to Croatia 24 or 25 times. This indeed illustrates our aspirations to have good relations”, President Pahor told journalists after the meeting.
Since both have experience as prime minister and president, President Pahor said that prime ministers regulate relations while presidents create an atmosphere. “As much as it was in my power both as prime minister and president of the Republic, I strived for us to have regulated relations with Croatia and sincere friendship between our peoples”, President Pahor added. He thereby underlined that the majority of analysts agree that the arbitration agreement – after eighteen years of incidents of a security nature – changed the atmosphere between the two peoples.
“Today we have a situation in which Croatia ranks fifth among Slovenia’s major foreign trade partners, with trade being five million euros. Croatia is the first destination of our investments, Slovenia is the first destination of your investments. All this to say that this is not only a great atmosphere between the two peoples and the two states, but it is about trust, mutual sympathy that has an impact on the prosperity of the people. This seems to me to be very important. We feel safe in front of each other – we cannot forget that our two peoples were never at war – and that impacts on the trust that increases the level of prosperity of both peoples in both states”, President Pahor added, congratulating Croatia on its forthcoming entry into the euro zone and the Schengen Area, and wished for membership in the OECD soon.
President Pahor reminded that he could always discuss with President Milanović despite the differences that exist between the states. He thanked him for his assistance in assuring the Brdo-Brijuni Initiative to continue in a very demanding moment of relations with the Western Balkans. “I hope that by the end of this year the European Council will give the green light for the liberalization of visas for Kosovo, the green light for candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that the European enlargement process will proceed. All this could, in some perspective, ensure prosperity to states in this part of Europe”, President stated in concluding his address.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Tomislav Bušljeta, Dario Andrišek, Ana Marija Katić