First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić met today with her Romanian counterpart Titus Corlatean, who is on an official visit to Croatia. “Corlatean is the first Romanian foreign minister to officially visit Croatia since 2011. In the meantime, we have developed excellent cooperation within European institutions since our countries belong to the same region and we have a lot of interests in common, from bilateral relations to cooperation in multilateral organizations and European institutions,” Pusić told press after the meeting. “We discussed transport connections, energy security and the connection of the energy networks in this part of Europe, the position of the minorities in both countries and economic cooperation. Some Croatian companies are already doing business in Romania,” Pusić said. She congratulated her Romanian counterpart on successfully presiding over SEECP in an inclusive manner.
“My visit shows that Romania is interested in cooperation in various fields. Our relations are very good, as is our cooperation within the EU and NATO. We are interested in further intensifying that cooperation and creating more contacts, even at the highest level. We are currently working on a visit by our parliament speaker to Croatia,” Corlatean said.
“We are interested in economic cooperation and would like to activate an already existing mechanism, which has been underutilised by our economy ministries, and that is the Memorandum of Cooperation. The working groups of our economy ministries are planning a meeting precisely to active that mechanism. A business forum is also in the works for this year,” said the Romanian minister. He and Pusić also talked about cooperation within the EU, reducing youth unemployment, energy sector, cooperation within the Danube Strategy, concrete economic projects and EU enlargement to the Balkans.
Corlatean thanked Pusić and Croatia for supporting Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia in their EU accession. He also applauded cooperation within NATO, underscoring security and an important precondition for economic growth.
Commenting on the free movement of labour, Corlatean said that some West European politicians were using this threat in a populist manner, for internal political purposes, often before elections. “We reject any such xenophobic, populist rhetoric,” he said.
"There are three fundamental reasons for the existence of the EU and for the support it enjoys among its 28 members and among the membership candidate countries and potential candidates. Those are long-term stability without war, freedom of movement, which means Europe without borders, and free enterprise, a common market. Without these three elements the European Union would be pointless. Touching any of them would mean calling into question the existence of the EU, and that's why Croatia will fully advocate preservation of these three reasons for the existence of the European Union," Pusić said.
Corlatean said Croatia had a favourable geographical position, given the Danube River on the one side and the Adriatic on the other. “It can also tap into EU funds for infrastructure, ports, tourism and so on. The working groups of our economy ministries will discuss concrete projects, and as for the business forum – the date has not been set yet, but we are hopeful it will be realized during the visit of our parliament speaker to Croatia,” Corlatean said.