This December – Eye on Croatia

With the drama of the US presidential race, the tumultuous geopolitics of the Middle East and the tragic news from Gaza over the weekend, it is understandable to have overlooked potentially enormously consequential developments in Croatia over the last month.

In December, Croatian voters will go to the polls to either elect a new President or retain the incumbent.

The race began in earnest on July 31st when Dr. Dragan Primorac, an award winning physician and scientist, announced his campaign to challenge the incumbent President Zoran Milanovic.

The challenger has a long history of working closely with diverse public and private sector leaders across both the United States and Israel. As the former Minister of Education, Science and Sport, Dr. Primorac, educated in Connecticut, has led and hosted countless delegations to both the United States and Israel.

His time on the world stage includes events as diverse as convening delegations with American and Israeli Nobel Prize winners and spearheading the historic friendly match in Jerusalem between the Israeli and Croatian national soccer teams in 2004.

The incumbent, however, has a history of prompting gasps, groans and head scratching in Washington, Brussels and Jerusalem. On October 13th, Milanovic demanded an Israeli flag be taken down from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs making clear “Israel has lost my sympathy”. The following week he doubled down attacking Israeli diplomat Lior Haiat saying of a country in shock and mourning “Israel acted brazenly and rudely”.

This fits an unfortunate and concerning pattern for the President of a country that is a proud NATO and European Union member.

Two months after Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, Milanovic openly mused about vetoing Swedish or Finnish accession to NATO. In August 2022, he claimed Western sanctions are ineffective against Russia. In January 2023, he derided NATO efforts to send additional weaponry to the frontlines as “mad.”, while in October 2022 he refused to meet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while she was on a historic trip to Croatia stating, “She is not my level, anyhow, in two weeks she will be the past; that is not a hamburger that is nothing burger.”

Indeed, just last week, the President broke with the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister suggesting, “I do not see any reason why Croatia should not recognize Palestine.”

Milanovic won the presidential election in Croatia in 2019. He presented himself to voters as a left-leaning counterpoint to the conservative government currently in the majority in the “Sabor” Parliament. Since then, he has turned aggressively to populist nationalism with tinges of naïve isolationism.

The next five years will inevitably require unified transatlantic efforts to rebuild, restore and, hopefully, begin reconciliation in both eastern Ukraine and Gaza. Decisions made in European capitals, Washington and Jerusalem will chart a course for generations.

Croatia has less than four million citizens. However, it also is one of only several NATO and European Union members to host an Israeli and Iranian embassy.

Three decades after war engulfed the Former Yugoslavia, Croatia has an important role to play and story to share on an increasingly volatile world stage.