Croatian Homeland War Values Lost In EU

Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic
President of Croatia at Brookings Institution
28 September 2018
Photo:Pixsell

In its quest for control over different nations the European Union political machine has gradually planted in its modus operandi the term “Consolidation of Europe” and its practical applications that evidently replaces the term of “accession”. Hence, if one is to go by Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic’s, the Croatian President’s statements made in New York at Brookings Institution during the past week, the path of consolidation rather than the path of accession will expand the EU into the so-called Western Balkans or South-East Europe. While consolidation generally is a desired pursuit within a unified body of nations in reference to the EU it reeks of political ploys to expand the EU by creating allowances; perhaps even the undesirable/unjustifiable ones such as burying brutal history without true reconciliation and responsibility for crimes perpetrated in the name of national politics, equating the victim with the aggressor.

One cannot consolidate that which does not exist – that is, several countries in South East Europe are not EU member states and so, to achieve EU expansion, EU is now referred to as Europe! Make your own conclusion as to what that means, I’ve made mine!

Consolidation in this context in essence means that the European Commission plays a progressively larger role in shaping policy and controlling its implementation across member states. The development agenda is evolving in a consolidationist direction, with a greater focus on collective solutions to global problems. This is the source of rather loud protests by some member states that fight to assert their national interests (some attached to historical events) within the European Union or are threatening to leave the Union because of imposed controls that wash away or erode individual member state sovereignty and what that sovereignty means to particular member states. Without high-level supporters the EU would have found it difficult to move in the consolidationist direction and, as far as Croatia is concerned, the support for a consolidationist approach sadly means the sacrificing of upholding as the highest of national values, the values of the Homeland War, which created the modern independent state! The core conditions favouring greater consolidation, including the interests of Member States, do not appear to be met as we have seen particularly through various “patriotic” moves made in Hungary or Italy; Brexit in itself; the widening gap between current Croatian national politics and core values of Homeland War means that decommunisation, lustration, Homeland War veterans status in society are the pain that chews away into oblivion the values Croatia defended and asserted during the Homeland War. Up until recently there was in the EU enthusiasm for greater cooperation, but it seems this is now being replaced with enthusiasm for greater consolidation.

The dangers of consolidation lie in the fact that consolidation itself also means greater sacrifice of national values and the Croatian Homeland War values are gradually eroded on down the ladder to make way for EU values; for EU control.

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic spent the past week in the US where she attended the 73rd UN General Assembly meeting and several events organised for her tour, including the International Leaders’ Forum hosted by the influential public policy organisation Brookings Institution on the 28th.

Retired US Marine General and former commander of the NATO ISAF, John R. Allen, emphasised at that forum that prior to becoming the president of Croatia as Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy at NATO “ … in everything she (Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic) did she brought distinction not only on behalf of Croatia but on behalf of all the liberal-democratic states in the community of nations.” Whether Grabar-Kitarovic’s apparent liberalism stops her from sticking to and emphasising worldwide the values of Croatia’s Homeland War as opposed to those of the EU is a moot point but in no uncertain terms a point that creates unease, if not anger, with many Croatian patriots.

The Forum at Brookings Institution on 28 September included the following:

John R. Allen: How do you see, how do you reflect upon Croatia joining the EU?

Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic: Looking at our EU membership I have to say that for Croatia it was a huge success because that was one of the goals that we put forward when we were striving for independence from Yugoslavia…so when people say or are even sad about the breakup of Yugoslavia we have to say that all of our countries in the territory used to be independent states at one point or another and we were part of different state contracts that sort of tried to exploit the fact that we need to be equal and that we need to express not only our national interest but the collective interest in the region… European Union has become more complex than when we strived to become a member state… we were at war, we were victim of aggression and occupation in the early nineties. We were member of the Berlin Wall, we were member of the Iron Curtain … and we were members of the reasons, the values why the EU was founded. The great success of the EU was incorporating the countries that were behind the Iron Curtain by making them part of democratic societies, market economies and by upholding the values of freedom of the individual but also of the responsibility not just towards your own nation but towards the EU and towards the human kind…working together towards global peace no matter how limited our capacities may be either in the national function or on the level of the EU but making the EU really the most successful integration process in the world so far. And despite all the circumstances that we are facing today, we are very proud to be one of the nations that supports a EU of equal nations, that is against any divisions, any kind of a EU that would be divided or any multi-tiered EU, that we are part of the EU that cares about its neighbours…it took a while for Croatia from being a member country following EU rules to start participating, creating rather than following…

John R. Allen: It’s important to recognise that the trauma that Croatia went through in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia in what they would term and what we should all learn more about – the Homeland War – the destruction that Croatia went through, the personal sacrifices of the citizens of Croatia, the entire region went through that war, to have Croatia emerge from that moment of national trauma and seek to be part of an organisation that stands for values and equality nation-for-nation you could have gone another way and I think we are all better for that.

Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic: It wasn’t an easy process and when you say that unfortunately the EU is sometimes perceived as a foe that couldn’t be further from the truth. The EU is the biggest partner of the US and Croatia and countries like Croatia are really your biggest partners and your biggest allies and when I listened to President’s speech in the UN asking for respect and saying that the US will provide assistance only to those countries who respect the US, that trade should be free and fair, well I can say that we think reciprocally as well. We want to be respected as well and we want that free trade as well. For instance Croatia has been asking for an avoidance of double taxation treaty ever since the nineties but we haven’t been able to conclude the treaty apparently for a lack of administrative capacity, which is hard to believe looking at your administrative capacities as the US, so when president Trump asks for free and reciprocal trade we ask for the same. We ask that Croatia be given the same respect and the same benefit of concluding that avoidance of double taxation treaty which in my opinion is just a technical issue that can be negotiated very quickly…

John R. Allen: You don’t like the term the Balkans, you have another term for it – South East Europe – and there are candidate members in that region that could accede to the EU and eventually to NATO. As you think about the region …what does that mean for us? What does that mean for the region? What advice would you give to the states potentially acceding to those two organisations?

Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic: That region is an indispensable part of Europe so currently it’s a vacuum that needs to be filled, so we’re not talking about enlargement we’re talking about consolidation of Europe and South East of Europe is not only a more neutral geographical term for the region but it’s the right term because it’s Europe, it’s a part of Europe and it shouldn’t be called anything but Europe. I know that there are a lot of people in the region who call themselves proud Balkans’ inhabitants, and I respect that, but again I resist the term because I think it has been a barrier to that consolidation of Europe and of the EU. Croatia has been one of the staunchest supporters of integration of our neighbouring countries in the EU and NATO for those who choose to do so. We have been doing everything we can to help them politically and tactically in helping to fulfil the criteria…another aspect is Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and we have the elections coming up on the 7th of October and I have been openly criticised by some politicians in BiH for interfering in the domestic affairs. Well first of all I have to say that in today’s world when it comes to human rights and the rights of nations and minorities, appealing to internal affairs unfortunately is a distinction that belongs to undemocratic countries…additionally Croatia is one of the signatories of the Dayton Peace Accords which are also the Constitution of BiH, so it’s our obligation to uphold that Constitution, to protect the rights of the Croatian nation as one of the constituent nations of BiH and the entire territory and I will never get tired or discouraged to continue to fight for the equal rights of every nation including the Croatian nation … so what I want for the outcome of these elections is to produce a functioning government … and to protect the Croatian nation as one of the constituent nations in the country…Now, when it comes to Serbia, I’ve invested so much of what I would call political capital in improving our relations with Serbia and I must say that I’m really not happy about the inflammatory rhetoric that comes from the other side, because within just a few minutes you can create situations that cannot be repaired for years afterwards. And what we want is full normalisation, we want to resolve issues from the past, in particular the missing persons from the war. There are still thousands of families on both the Croat and Serb sides waiting for their closure and we want to solve the border issues and we want to help Serbia to proceed on the way to the EU but they must fulfil the same criteria that Croatia has fulfilled as well…”

One would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fit the rigorous process of accession Croatia was forced to undergo (including Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac answering to false criminal charges of Joint Criminal Enterprise and the ensuing ICTY battles to reach acquittal of those charges) into a process of consolidation, simply because consolidation in itself “naturally” requires compromises; compromises that Croatian people may not want when it comes to Serbia and its aggression against Croatia in the early nineties. While President Grabar Kitarovic is right saying that EU membership was one of Croatia’s goals when it fought to secede from communist Yugoslavia, the sad and unpalatable truth is that the Croatian Homeland War values for democracy (decommunisation), patriotic togetherness, upholding cohesive state-building ideas, to name just three, are the values that are being pushed into insignificance, or diluted to tepidity, in this consolidation of EU process she has evidently invested and is investing efforts into! Ina Vukic