More than 70 high–ranking delegations from all over the world participated in the meeting, and the participants were addressed by the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland Radoslaw Sikorski and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania Audronius Azubalis, since Lithuania currently holds the Community presidency.

The Community of Democracies presents a movement founded on the American–Polish initiative which supports strengthening the rule of democracy, and supports initiatives and activities with the aim of supporting democratic processes and strengthening democratic institutions in all of the countries in the world.

Secretary of State Clinton opened the high level meeting stating that the cooperation between the governmental sector, economic subjects and civil society is necessary for prosperity of any country. She warned that weakening of civil liberties and threats to civil society in certain countries put the democratisation process in serious danger.

State Secretary Božinović, by participating in the ministerial panel „Is Democracy Losing Ground? What is to be done?“, supported the Community’s achievements during the past ten years. He also supported the content of the joint statement by which member countries made a commitment to put additional effort into turning the Community into a unique forum which would serve strengthening and respecting the rule of law, international norms, human rights and democratic values on a global level.

He mentioned that the Republic of Croatia achieved significant results in creating a democratic system which, after a period of conflicts, greatly helped the country’s overall development. This also proves that democracy and developmental issues are inseparable processes. Besides governmental structures and international organisations, a great role in the society democratisation process is played by the civil society and non-governmental organisations, which number over 36,000 in Croatia. Moreover, the Republic of Croatia recognizes the additional importance of the membership in the European Union and NATO in the context of strengthening democracy, stability and country’s overall development. Therefore, Croatia strongly supports and advocates enlargement and promotion of Euro-Atlantic security and stability standards through creating democracy in other countries, especially south-east European countries, and puts effort into finding suitable solutions for open issues which could jeopardise democratisation and development of the region.

In the final, “Krakow declaration”, among other things, it is emphasized that democratic processes in many parts of the world are at a standstill because they are competing with other political and economic models. Furthermore, the participants agreed that, along with democratic activists and all who are dedicated to democratic processes, they must build a new global agenda of the Community of Democracies in order to increase its efficiency and intensity of action.

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