Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic has been confirmed as Croatia’s new Minister for Foreign Affairs and European Integration by the Croatian Parliament today.
Croatia Names New Minister for Foreign Affairs and European Integration
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic has been confirmed as Croatia’s new Minister for Foreign Affairs and European Integration by the Croatian Parliament today.
Her appointment follows the government’s decision to merge its ministries of foreign affairs and European integration into one ministry to facilitate activities related to its EU membership drive.
Grabar-Kitarovic, until now the Minister for European Integration, is also Head of Delegation for the negotiations on the accession of Croatia to the EU.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader told parliament members that the main reason for the merging was the wish to avoid any overlapping of the two ministries’ activities.
“This way the government will be more efficient, mobile and homogenous,” the Prime Minister said, adding that the proposal to integrate the two ministries had been supported by the European Commission.
The Croatian Parliament also approved today the appointments of Damir Polancec as Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy and Neven Ljubicic as the new Health and Social Welfare Minister. Their appointments follow the departure of Deputy Prime Minister Andrija Hebrang, the Health and Social Welfare Minister, who resigned last month for health reasons.
Before his appointment to Deputy Prime Minister, Damir Polancec had been a member of the Podravka food company''s management board for the past five years.
Neven Ljubicic was Assistant Health Minister. He is an internist by profession.
Press releases
