Minister Kotromanović met Ambassador Vandoren

At the beginning of the meeting, the Minister thanked the Ambassador Vandoren for the personal support and support of the Delegation in the Croatian accession to the European Union, stressing that the referendum for the accession to the European Union has been successful because of the effort of Delegation in informing citizens about the importance of Croatian accession to the EU. He stressed that Croatia has been involved a number of years in the implementation of a common defence and security policy, where the Minister mentioned the previous CAF involvement as well as the next CAF involvement in the EU Battle Groups led by Germany, which will be on standby in the second half of 2012. The Minister introduced Ambassador Vandoren with initiatives with countries in the region in terms of Smart Defence and use of common defence capabilities, for example, emphasizing the established collaboration to standardize the training of pilots with the Czech Republic. “The stability and security in the region is extremely important to us, and we strongly support the regional initiatives, as we believe that Croatia could be an example to help the countries of the region on their path to Euro-Atlantic integrations”, Kotromanović said.

The Ambassador agreed with the role of Croatia in the region, and stressed that the EU appreciates the contribution that Croatia provides in exchanging experiences with countries in the region. He pointed out that in recent years Croatia made great progress, as confirmed by the now certain full membership of the European Union, preceding by the ratification of all 27 member states. “The Republic of Croatia with its experience can certainly serve as an example to other countries in the region confirming that fulfilment of conditions and commitments would allow for EU membership” Ambassador Vandoren said.

Minister Kotromanović and Ambassador Vandoren also discussed about further restructuring of the Armed Forces, as well as on the main guidelines of the new strategic defence documents focusing on equipping and modernization of the Armed Forces.