MEPs discuss the state of the EU and its future prospects with Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Croatian Prime Minister. This is the fourth in a series of debates on the EU labelled “This is Europe”. Introduction by Roberta METSOLA, EP President.

Brussels

statement

plenary session

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

PLENKOVIĆ, Andrej (EPP, HR)

president's agenda

This is Europe Debate (T)

"This is Europe" debate: introduction by Roberta METSOLA, EP President and opening statement by Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Croatian Prime Minister

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, Prime Minister, welcome back to the European Parliament, a house that you know so well. We know you as a proud pro-European who was a state secretary for European integration, laid the groundwork for Croatia's accession to the European Union in 2013. And as a member of the European Parliament, you worked closely with all of us and also our Ukrainian colleagues. And today it is under your leadership as prime minister of Croatia that your country has successfully met all the legal criteria for entry into the euro area. Congratulations.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, At the start of the year, our house celebrated the euro's 20th anniversary and it is fitting, therefore, that Croatia will soon become the 20th member of the Eurozone. And this marks a true defining moment for Croatia and our Union. But in order to remain credible, we must also be consistent. Croatia is ready for Schengen. The European Parliament has long recognised that Croatia has met all the necessary requirements to join the Schengen area and we will continue to support that.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, Croatia's European story is a success story. It gives hope, it shows results. With a war on our continent, with the decisions that we must take this week, the importance of hope cannot be underestimated. But hope alone will only get us so far. With when countries look to Europe, they expect us to keep our promises and they expect tangible progress, because Europe can be more. And on that note, I thank you, Prime Minister, dear Andrej, thank you for being a staunch supporter of Europe, for your leadership and for your tireless endeavours to maintain a viable EU perspective for the region. Prime Minister Andre the Floor is yours.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, It is my great pleasure to speak in front of you here in the European Parliament already for the third time during my six years as the Prime Minister of Croatia. But also it is my pleasure to be here with you as a friend, as a former colleague that was here between 2013 and 2016.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And also, I would like to remember my friend David Sassoli, who was president of the European Parliament and who, unfortunately left us too early, almost half a year ago. This was a great loss for his family, but also to his home country, Italy, and to the entire European Union. Dear friends, when I was speaking last time here in this House of European Democracy, I presented at the time, it was January 2020, the programme of the first ever Croatia's presidency of the Council of the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, The title of this programme was: A strong Europe in the World of Challenges. What unfolded literally two weeks after that speech was the break out of a covid-19 pandemic, an event that has entirely altered the way of our lives, the way of our work, of our business, of our transport, of our education. It has literally altered the decision making process the way we used to know it in the European Union. Croatia's presidency couldn't have guessed better that the world was really facing a challenge, and the challenge was the biggest pandemic in hundred years.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, The challenge that made us be creative, the challenge that has demonstrated more togetherness amongst the EU member states, the challenge that has shown the unprecedented solidarity and the incredible swiftness and efficiency in our common actions to protect our citizens from this plague that has hit the world and that has hit the European Union, that has threatened the lives of our citizens.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And in that respect, I think we can now, looking back at what was done in such a short period of time, not only with epidemiological measures, with the provision of protective equipment, but the incredibly fast discovery of the vaccines, we can say that we saved jobs, that we have kept the existential needs of our families, that we have managed to help our companies, our businesses, especially in the private sector, to bridge the threats that they were facing.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, In that respect, I, as the prime minister, was conducted by the concept of our policy, which we call the modern approach, the modern take on sovereignty. What it means to a country which became internationally recognised only 30 years ago is important to understand. We were a nation that was seeking its independence, that was seeking its state for many centuries. We finally attained this strategic national objective only 30 years ago in the context of tectonic global changes and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the entire fall of the communist regimes in the Eastern Europe.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And for us, attaining our sovereignty was very important. Having our own state was very important. But we have very quickly decided that the future of our nation belongs to the European Union and everything we have done for two decades after we became internationally recognised in the day of our international recognition is the 15th of January, we strived to become a member of the European family and we managed that in 2013.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And when I say today to my fellow Croats, modern take on soveranism, that means that we are achieving our national goals by pooling and sharing our sovereignty with our friends and partners in the European Union, that we are helping our citizens with the extension of the Christian principle of solidarity, something that brings us together, something that helps us to overcome all the difficulties and problems that we would have otherwise overcome in a far more complicated and difficult and, most likely, slower manner.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, That's why this approach that we have for our own country, we are systematically advocating for the entire future of our European Union because this debate comes in the context of the series of debates on This is Europe. And I will say a few words about the biggest challenge: the challenge that has started on the 24th of February this year, the brutal Russian invasion and aggression against Ukraine has literally annihilated the main principles of international law, the Main approach to the global governance, to the international relations that we were cultivating for decades.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, United Nations member country, sovereign country, neighbouring country, has suffered a brutal aggression. For Croatia, who was also a victim of aggression at the time, greater Serbian policy by Milosevic's regime at the beginning of the 90s. It was very quick, spontaneous, almost reflex reaction. Well, first of all, understanding what was going on in Ukraine and secondly, in extending our support and help,.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, The policy of Moscow has two elements it has two sticks: one stick is the nuclear arsenal, the other stick are the fossil fuels. With these two sticks, they were able to conduct such an aggression against Ukraine. At the same time, the two natives, the native of literally not recognising the Ukrainian identity, If you say that you are not Ukrainians, but you are small Russians, then you're going to the essence of the identity of a nation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And second, the almost incredible narrative of denazification of Ukraine was, in our view, quickly translated into similar type of narratives that we had in 1990 with the Croats. Almost the same when it comes to the identity and when it comes to the so-called identification. And these parallels were very clear to us.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, In my speech to the European Council on the 24th of February, I said that this has happened in the moment where obviously the analysis in Moscow was that there were some weaknesses in the context of the timing of the state of play of the West. I will put it in general. The first one was the way of perception that the West left Afghanistan, perhaps not in the most dignified manner.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, The second was the fact that there was a change of era in political terms in Germany. Second was that France was preoccupied with the presidency of the Council and the presidential and then, of course, which we witnessed recently, parliamentary elections. Third, the United Kingdom left out its own reasoning, the European family. All of this happened immediately, just as in 2008 when they were the Olympic Games in Beijing. At the time, there were Summer Olympic Games and there was an invasion of Georgia. Now, it happened again after the Winter Olympic Games again in Beijing, it happened again in Ukraine.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, What were the ramifications and ramifications for Ukrainian nation are devastating. Tens of thousands of dead civilians and soldiers, 13 million people displaced, six million refugees, incredible material destruction and the occupation of territory. But what we have witnessed was the incredible mobilisation of the international community and support for Ukraine.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, We did the same. We paid our contribution with a lot of heart, both in political and diplomatic and economic, in financial terms, in humanitarian terms. By hosting the refugees in our country, there are over twenty thousand Ukrainians which found shelter in Croatia and we are ready to receive them more. And of course, we help them just as many other members of the European Union, by providing them means to fight for their freedom, for their independence, for their lives. And that was the procurement of military aid.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, In that context, Ukraine applied for the membership in the European Union. I was one of the members of the European Council who was immediately very clear and articulate about supporting this candidacy, not only because I was the president of the delegation for relations with Ukraine when I was an MEP here several years ago, but because I know how important this gesture in this context for Ukrainian leadership, but most fall for the Ukrainian nation and Ukrainian people is.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And therefore, I am pleased to see that the position of many member states is now being assembled around the wording that will most likely be the historic European Council tomorrow, and on Friday actually grant Ukraine the candidate status. I think this is important, it's courageous and it is certainly deserved by a nation that is fighting for the European principles of freedom and of democracy, and therefore, our support to Ukraine will remain very clear and unwavered.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, Similarly, we support the candidate status for Moldova, we support a candidate status for Georgia with conditions. We feel that this great leap of putting all of those three countries into the context of those states and the European continent who do have a European perspective is an important political evolution on the architecture of our Europe and of our continent. So if this is debate on Europe, this is a big change on the way we are looking at countries who are not yet members of the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, In this context, I will just say that the global perception of the current state of play of international relations is going to be focussed on the rather simple notion, and that is not the cooperative way of conducting international relations, but more conflictual way of international relations, whereby we should, on one side have democracies, and on the other side the authoritarian regimes.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, This is the gist of the historical moment that we are going through. And this is where the European Union, as one of those who are at the peak of the Democratic standards globally, should have a leading role in explaining and doing the so-called political pedagogy wherever we can of what is actually at stake. The ramifications are hitting everyone now of Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, In terms of energy crisis, in terms of spike of the prices of the raw materials, construction materials, food, even risking famine, especially in the eastern part of Africa, but elsewhere, globally, too, and putting inflation pressures on our own member states. This is important to understand. No one is untouched by the magnitude of this, first of all, energy crisis, but even more deeper by the rise of the prices of food.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And here just as we did in covid, where we had a huge, unexpected problem, but we provided a very big and efficient answer, and the answer was powerful. The EU Next Generation was a bold answer of the European Union of today to the problem that was hitting every single of our citizens, and therefore, the attempt which we are now doing with the initiative of the debates in the European Council, the Commission has come up with Repower EU.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, It was an important gesture and the guidance of the Commission, how we can organise ourselves by being true to the commitment which we said in Versaille, we should gradually abandon fossil fuels coming from Russia in order to be able to do that and still being able to organise secure supply of energy to our economies and to our households. We need to organise ourselves in terms of energy grids in the European Union, and that means investments, both in gas pipelines, in oil pipelines, in liquefied natural gas terminals.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, Croatia did its part of the homework already before, we have one LNG terminal at the island of Krk with a capacity of 2.9 Billion cubic metres now. We decided to invest in it, to upgrade to 6.1 Billion cubic metres, which would be enough not only for our needs in terms of our economy and our citizens and our industry, of course, but also to the needs of our neighbouring states such as Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Hungary.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, Similarly, we used in the same way the Croatian Adriatic pipeline, which can provide enough oil for Hungary, for Slovakia, for Serbia, a pipeline that can easily provide enough for the refineries in our neighbourhood. That means that our geostrategic position as one of the energy hubs and the energy map of Europe is something we should try to foster and strengthen in the years which are ahead of us.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, Talking about the debate on This is Europe and our debate in the European Council tomorrow and on Friday, and especially the summit that is organised tomorrow morning with the Western Balkans. I will mention here again, the countries that are close to us, which we know well, where  we are supporting their path towards the European Union, their European perspective. Especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, with whom we share more than 1000 kilometres of border, where Croat people, who are the same as Croats in Croatia, are one of the three constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with which we have tremendous economic exchange.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, We are the second investor in Bosnia and Herzegovina and there are so many linkages, historic, cultural, economic, transport that bind us together. And we, of course, have been in favour of granting a candidate status also to Bosnia and Herzegovina very clearly because we feel that this country should not be the last wagon in the train of the Western Balkans towards the European Union. It would Be a historical unjustice.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And therefore we are one of those member states who are advocating granting of candidate status also to Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which context we would like also the urgent solution for the changes to the electoral law, which would enable that we have fair and just elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina where all the three constituent peoples, and especially Croats, are after the elections represented as duly as they should be as it was the letter and the spirit of the Dayton Peace Agreement of which annexe four is the constitution of the country.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And this position is very clear. It's a friendly position. It's a good neighbourly position. It's a position that will help the European future of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, will be the one who will be the first one to support it wholeheartedly and continuously.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, When it comes to the future of Europe and the debate after the Conference on the Future of Europe, I would here like to thank Schweitzer, who is Croatian member of the European Commission and the vice president for Demography and Democracy. And I think that she has done a great job. That the European Parliament has done a great job, that national parliaments have participated in this all encompassing, and inclusive process, in bringing the European citizens more closer to the European institutions, but more essentially to the gist of the debate of what we can do better together and how we can feel perhaps those voids in our cooperation or how we can rectify some elements that should be done better.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, From that respect, I think that the Conference on the Future of Europe, especially its conclusions with the suggestions and recommendations, are a very clear signal of the European peoples, of European citizens from all of our member states, in Croatia we had more than two hundred and fifty events, on what the European institutions should do, what would be our direction.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, I was in particular pleased that there was a very, very clear signal that we should do more in terms of mixed shared-competences when it comes to health cooperation. If there was one lessons learnt from the pandemic, and we were in the driving seat, we had the presidency, our ambassador here, our permanent representative, triggered the mechanisms at the beginning, already at the end of January in 2020. And then we realised that actually this was an area where the European Union member states should have more structured cooperation, more shared competences, more competences for the commission to lead the process, which were done in the crisis management in such an efficient way, as if everything was planned, and it wasn't. So I think that this message that came from the recommendations should certainly be taken into account.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, When it comes to this critical debate on the decision-making process, when it comes to the issues of foreign and security policy, I understand and fully can have a good comprehension of what the position of the European Parliament is. And I read the resolution here. When you sit in the position of a member of the European Parliament, and I'm lucky to have this experience. And when you sit in your position as head of government, the optic is a little bit different. There are perhaps 97, 98, 99 percent of the situations where we find a compromise, an agreement almost on everything.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, Occasionally the are the understanding situations where we differ and we have sometimes difficulties in finding of other partners for the particular position we have. I'm always saying that conditioning or blackmailing is a very bad policy. We were a victim of blackmailing for several years before we became a member, and we don't like, and we don't support it then.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, We always advocate how to use the right argument with the right approach to our friends, to our partners. We are all part of the same family and how we can reach a compromise. And I have noted that many of the member states who belong to, let's say, small and medium sized member states are a little bit reticent. They are reticent because they know what the mathematics and calculation of the voting in the Council means. And therefore, I think that this issue merits a very careful and diligent follow up.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, And we should enter into this debate. We shall take duty into account in the messages that were clearly sent to us by the European conference and by the resolution of the European Parliament.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, May I say a few words about Croatia's ambitions in the in this almost exactly end of year ninth of our membership. Because I think it's important to mention it as well.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, I as a prime conduct minister a very pro-European policy, taking into account the national interest of my country, just as everybody else is doing and should do. And we decided in our programme six years ago, that we want to be part of two deeper integrations. First one, the Euro zone and second, the Schengen area. And I was very pleased that Roberta has mentioned that  Croatia's membership of the Eurozone seems to be set.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, Your colleague, Siegfried Mauresan, a rapporteur for Croatian membership in the Eurozone has, after the visit to Croatia, made a very sober, correct, but also positively-toned report that the relevant European Parliament committee has overwhelmingly supported. And I'm sure the same happens in the plenary. And that gesture of the European Parliament is highly appreciated in Croatia by my government, by our citizens. And that means that after the endorsement tomorrow at the European Council, we are facing the final decision at the ECOFIN Council on the 12th of July.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, That means that Croatia will join the Eurozone on the 1st of January 2023, just as we planned. And just as we have carefully and diligently implemented our strategy for joining the euro. The programme for the conversion of the Croatian corner to Euro, the action plan that followed after our joini  ng of the exchange rate mechanism to end the banking union on the 10th of July, 25 days after the second victory at the parliamentary elections that we had, and that we should fulfil this key political, first of all, but also economic and financial objective on time and as we planned. And I thank you for your support and your understanding that Croatia becomes the 25th member of the Eurozone.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, At the same time, I think over the next week the Council will send the formal proposal for the decision to be taken on the Croatia's membership in the Schengen area, also to the European Parliament, where I expect we will quickly have a rapporteur for Schengen who will also take a very diligent view on our readiness. And we have also worked very, very hard to fulfil these criteria, where both Jonkers Commission at the end of their mandate in October 2019 and again Commissioner Ursula von der Lyen, and I would like to think in particular her and Commissioner Johansson have estimated that Croatia has fulfilled the necessary criteria and that the relevant decision of the council after the opinion of the European Parliament will be taken in autumn and that we should also join this deeper integration on the 1st of January 2023.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, That would mean that Croatia will be with all with both feet firmly in the centre of the European Union, firmly in the deeper integration, thus fulfilling the decision of the Croatian parliament and of the Croatian people and the referendum where we joined the European Union. In that respect, we shall strengthen our economy, we should strengthen the free movement, we should facilitate the free movement of people and it will be a backup to a situation which we have today.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, We have the lowest number of unemployed people in Croatia in the last perhaps thirty years, only a 103.000. We have the biggest employment in Croatia in the last 20 years, and we shall try to continue intervening, as I said many times, whether it was covid or now the energy crisis, to keep the economic and social standards of our citizens, because this is clearly a key priority, which we will make sure happens because of the synergy of using the European and Croatian sources.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, The membership of the European Union has proved itself in time of crisis as one of those essential tools which allow us to fulfil the key national objectives, and provide shelter and security for our citizens. In that respect, I will mention one important project, also co-financed by the European Union budget means, and that is the Peljesac bridge, the bridge that will be opened on the 26th of July this year, that will physically connect the southern part of Croatia with the rest of the country.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, For us, it is a strategic objective that couldn't have had more symbolic connotation that it has and that we should be continuing to invest in the new security threats into our defence capabilities and into contribution of Croatia to the strategic autonomy of the European Union. Croatia will procure 12 French profile multi combat planes that will arrive in a little bit more than a year time from today, and that will strengthen our role as a partner in the European Union's defence, but also as a reliable ally in NATO.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ, Prime Minister of Croatia, All of this brings me to the conclusion that the times are full of challenges just as much as we thought when we were preparing our presidency programme two and a half years ago. But even more, when I look at the health crisis, security crises, political crises, but also energy and existential crisis for many of our citizens who, without the role of the state and, moreover, without the concerted action, joint action through the principle of solidarity of the European Union would not look for a better future, as we can look at it today. Thank you very much.