Minister Pusić: Development aid one of key international relations instruments

First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusić attended today a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council - Trade

First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusić attended today a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council - Development. “The meeting discussed the UN secretary general’s report on the post-2015 agenda. Croatia is here extremely active. We have been making a case for the small donors, in that there would be no development aid without the big donors, but that the aim is to create a wider international consensus on the goals of and ways in which development aid and synergy are created. The small donors are extremely important in that regard. It is Croatia’s belief that development aid is one of the key instruments of international relations, bringing along solidarity and a more or less even-handed global development,” Pusić said after the meeting.

Asked about the LNG terminal in the Island of Krk, Pusić replied: “It is an ongoing project, but was not on the agenda today. It is one of our foreign policy points. The project has been put on the strategic energy priority lists, and now it is important to focus on constructing it. We haven’t discussed it today, as this was a meeting of the EU ministers tasked with development aid, but the first talks about it took place as early as 2012.”

The minister also commented on the new initiative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. “That the EU has changed its approach is a good sign. The goals remain the same, only the sequence of meeting the terms has been changed. What once were preconditions for even launching the process has now become a part of it. We are glad that our suggestion to make that written commitment a part of the future BH government’s programme, and that the parliament votes on it, has been accepted,” Pusić said.

Pusić once again confirmed her attendance at a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Belgrade, which will gather 16 countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Asked to comment on the Croatian-Serbian relations, Pusić said: “Our relations have taken a turn for the worse with this incident that Serbia can’t be blamed for, but it would’ve been nice if the Serbian government had simply distanced itself from it with one sentence, in which case this whole circus by an otherwise marginal character would’ve remained an excess that has no bearing on our relations.” She added that the relations between two countries were never just relations between political elites and government, but between societies as well, and our societies are sensitive to hatemongering given our recent history. “Our task now is to repair those relations and facilitate communication,” Pusić said. Although not a bilateral visit, Pusić said that it would be “a well-meaning and positive message by the Croatian side” that she hoped would meet with “an appropriate response”.

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