First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić 9 and 10 December in Luxembourg attended an informal meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council (Development). Pusić said that the end of Luxembourg’s EU Council presidency marked the end of the European Year of Development, which for Croatia is particularly important as in the last four years we have placed great emphasis precisely on development cooperation with a number of countries that are important and interesting to Croatia in terms of economic and political cooperation. Underlining that we regarded development cooperation as one of the key instruments of international relations and our foreign policy, Pusić recalled that Croatia’s Neven Mimica is the current commissioner in charge of development cooperation. “Croatia has its own concept of development cooperation and sees it as a two-way street benefiting both partners,” Pusić said, adding that Croatia was promoting development cooperation not just with countries in Southeast Europe, but also with countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Angola and Colombia. The meeting discussed the implementation of 17 global development goals by 2030, adopted at the last session of the UN General Assembly. The goals include various elements, with the approach that many of the current crises – migration, refugee and to a certain extent terrorism as a global threat – could be resolved through development cooperation with countries stricken by poverty and conflicts, in which there are no services that the citizens need. “We also discussed the prospect of combining experiences of the civil society with experiences of the state, which is something Croatia is familiar with, as well as about the necessity of such cooperation,” Pusić said, adding there was also talk about cooperating with the economic and private sector, as such cooperation prevents global dangers affecting the world of economy. The meeting also migrations, focusing not so much on the situation along the Balkan route but rather on the ways of preventing migration from African countries precisely through development cooperation.