State Secretary Davor Božinović held political consultations with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Chile Alberto Van Klaveren Stork

The collocutors talked about the status of mutual relations in the fields of culture, economy, science and education. Bilateral relations in general were described as excellent and traditionally friendly. A distinguishing characteristic of the relations between the two countries is the fact that currently approximately 200,000 people of Croatian origin live in the Republic of Chile, of whom a significant number hold distinguished posts in the Chilean society. In the meeting they also talked about the possibility for further intensification of the relations, especially in the field of scientific and technological and economic cooperation, where the Chilean side expressed particular interest for investments in renewable energy sources.

State Secretary Božinović informed his collocutor about the current developments related to Croatia’s accession negotiations, and he expressed hope that intensive talks with Slovenia would soon result in mutually acceptable solution, meaning that Croatia’s accession negotiations would be unblocked shortly.

In the follow-up to the talks, the collocutors exchanged views on the situation in the regions of South America and Southeast Europe. They also discussed the global topics such as the international economic crisis and its influence on the national economies, participation of the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Chile in peace missions, climate changes and reform of the United Nations.

On the same day, the Chilean official held a lecture for the employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration the topic of which was “Latin America”. He informed the people present about the current political situation in Latin America and the level of democracy on the Continent, and with the ramifications of the world economic crisis which, he noticed with pleasure, even though prominent, have not resulted in social tensions. After he presented an overview of the South American multilateral integration processes, the Chilean official said that despite certain successes and a definite necessity for their existence, not a single community could be compared with the success of the European Union. As the main political and economic partners of Chile he singled out the United States of America, the European Union, in particular China and other Asian countries where Chile is placing one third of its overall annual exports.