To be admitted to NATO Croatia had to demonstrate the respect of basic standards and values such as protection of human rights and the rule of law and predictable conduct.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The Conference comprised two panels –\u00a0 “The Republic of Croatia and NATO \u2013 from Accession to This Day”; and “The Republic of Croatia and NATO \u2013 look into future” respectively, giving the floor to the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia, Vesna Pusi\u0107, Defence Minister, Ante Kotromanovi\u0107, Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Armed Forces, Genera Drago Lovri\u0107, Assistant NATO Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, Ambassador Kolinda Grabar Kitarovi\u0107, former Croatian Ambassadors to NATO, Davor Bo\u017einovi\u0107 and Igor Pokaz and the present Permanent Representative to NATO, Ambassador Boris Grigi\u0107, as well as the Head of the Delegation of\u00a0 the Croatian Parliament to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Boris Bla\u017eekovi\u0107.<\/p>\n
Defence Minister, Ante Kotromanovi\u0107 stressed that Croatian accession to NATO and the victory in the Homeland War had been the two achievements determining the role of the Croatian Armed Forces.
\u00a0“It has been five years of good experience with NATO. Defence reforms have been conducted thorougly, the respective norms and standards adopted, the Croatian military readiness upgraded, the training system ameliorated, and a valuable experience from the operations has been acquired. We may be a small country, but its voice now counts in Bruxelles and in NATO, and we have proved ourselves as a reliable partner”,\u00a0 concluded the Minister Kotromanovi\u0107.<\/p>\n
Assistant NATO Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Kolinda Grabar Kitarovi\u0107 highlighted that by acceding NATO Croatia joined the Euro-Atlantic family it had always belonged to, and briefly reviewed the situation in the East Europe.
\u201eNATO is entering a new phase, where the technology progress and fighting the increasing security threats will have a prominent role and joint operation will be essential, so I am glad that Croatia has joined a series of multinational projects and assumed the leading role in one of them, and I think that the past five years have been highly beneficial for Croatia and NATO alike, concluded Ambassador Grabar Kitarovi\u0107. <\/p>\n
Senior American official Matthew Mark Horn, who strongly advocated Croatia’s entry to NATO, extended appreciation to Croatia for the participation in ISAF and stated that Croatia’s achievement over a single decade was hardly imaginable “a brilliant example to NATO aspirants”.<\/p>\n[nggallery id=1386]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Conference marking the fifth anniversary of Croatia’s accession to NATO was held in the Croatian Parliament on 31 March 2014. It was attended by the President of the Republic, Ivo Josipovi\u0107, the Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, Josip Leko and Croatian Prime Minister, Zoran Milanovi\u0107, who in their addresses emphasised that NATO Alliance was based on the political and military co-operation, and increasingly on the basic democracy values.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4698,"featured_media":36860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n