First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić held a presentation of projects implemented by the MFEA, organized for foreign diplomats accredited in Croatia. The six specific projects included the Centre of Excellence, Economic Diplomacy, Development Cooperation, Military Peacekeeping Missions and Civil Development Cooperation, the Croatia House and Adriatic Provence. Pusić recalled that the Centre of Excellence was founded on the idea of sharing Croatia’s experience in EU integration with other countries in the region as well as with Georgia and Moldova. More than 400 activities have been organised in nine recipient countries, which included coordination of twinning out EU instruments and strengthening of Croatia’s EU affairs capacities, with some 300 experts participating in and about 4,000 people attending those activities.
The Development Cooperation project covered 19 countries of Southeast Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, as well as underdeveloped countries in transition, and included 476 projects with emphasis on post-conflict societal reconstruction and assistance to women and girls. Croatia’s budget allocations for development cooperation in 2015 were four times those in 2011. The third project Pusić presented were military peacekeeping missions accompanied by civil development cooperation projects, while one of the main ideas of the Adriatic Provence project, aimed at developing rural tourism in the Dalmatian hinterland, is to promote cross-border cooperation with the neighbouring countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. The Croatia House has promoted Croatian culture in the world through 178 projects in 53 countries on six continents.
The Economic Diplomacy project was presented by Deputy Foreign Minister Joško Klisović, underlining that the project actively supported exporters on foreign markets, as evidenced by a survey in which the majority of customers praised the service. Klisović said that through the Economic Diplomacy project 8,500 services had been provided to over 2,000 exporters operating on 118 markets.
The members of the diplomatic corps thanked the Ministry for offering services to foreign companies. They also pointed out the positive feedback for the Centre of Excellence project, highlighting Croatia as a good example to countries in the region.