Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on Europe’s Growing Role in Transatlantic Ties

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Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, a leading voice in support of increasing Europe’s role in the transatlantic alliance, will join Hudson for a fireside chat.

Croatia has long been a bastion of stability in southeastern Europe and a strong friend and ally of the United States. Facing an increasingly dangerous security environment, Zagreb is answering the call to boost Europe’s defenses. In April, the nation announced it would increase its defense spending from 2 to 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product by 2027, with a plan to reach 3 percent by 2030.

A strong supporter of Ukraine, Prime Minister Plenković stated in February that any future peace “must be just and principled.” Since 2022, Croatia has donated aid equivalent to over 0.5 percent of its GDP, rivaling America’s relative total support.

Croatia is also important to Europe’s energy and economic security. It has nearly doubled its GDP under Prime Minister Plenković and is now the European Union’s second-fastest-growing economy, with record low unemployment and rapidly declining public debt. Croatia has successfully positioned itself as a regional energy hub thanks to its liquefied natural gas and oil terminals on the island of Krk.

At Hudson, Prime Minister Plenković will discuss the future of the EU-US relationship and why strong alliances are important for meeting today’s challenges.

Episode Transcript

This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.

Peter Rough:

Good afternoon and welcome to the Betsy in Walter p Stern conferencing Center here at Hudson Institute. My name is Peter Rough, senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia here at Hudson. It is my privilege to welcome to the institute Andre Kovich, the longest serving prime minister in Croatia’s post independence history with three consecutive terms in office dating back to October, 2016. We are very grateful for our partnership with the Croatian embassy. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador and to the Prime Minister’s delegation, including two ministers for taking the time to join us here today. Of course, we all know Croatia for its red and white checkered soccer team, Luca Morich basketball stars like Rajan Petrovich and Tony Kuku and its status as one of Europe’s in the world’s hottest vacation destinations. But amongst international relations professionals, the Prime Minister has received plotts for the revitalization and modernization of the Croatian economy, most of all underpinned by surge investment, employment growth and improvements in living standards, wages and pensions.

Croatia, under Prime Minister Vic’s leadership has overcome earthquakes, the Coronavirus pandemic and an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine to achieve two major strategic objectives, KO’s succession to the Eurozone and Shein areas on New Year’s Day 2023. He has also successfully negotiated accession to the US Visa Waiver program and Global Entry Program. And for all of these successes, he was rewarded in 2024 with his most recent parliamentary election victory and point of fact the best election result for any EPP party in last year’s European parliamentary elections we’re delighted to have the Prime Minister give remarks at Hudson today and afterward he’ll be joined in conversation by Daniel COIs, a senior fellow at Hudson and one of Washington’s best Balkan analysts. I would recommend to all of you his March testimony before the Europe subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in which he devoted significant time to the opportunities and challenges that Balkans face today. Dan also put together a great conference on central and Eastern Europe just last month underpinning our interest in those of all of Hudson’s in the CEE states. Before I invite the prime minister to the stage, I also want to acknowledge the presence of Deser Admiral Sir Keith Blount, who found time in his busiest schedule today to show the NATO flag. Sir, thank you for being here, especially on VE day, which we celebrate 80 years today. Mr. Prime Minister, the floor is yours.

Andrej Plenković:

Good day everybody. Good afternoon almost now, first of all, thank you very much for this really kind words of introduction and I’m really grateful to the Hudson Institute to all of you that have dedicated your time at this important moment here in Washington to discuss together the topic of my address today. And that is the new transatlantic moment and the Europe’s growing role. Thank you for reminding us about key aspects of Croatia and its visibility in the United States, not only as a tourist destination but as a great sporting nations where generations of crats who have looked for better life, have come across the Atlantic and found the home for their families and the ones who are now fifth or sixth generations of prat in the United States, they represent the strongest bond between the two countries. I think that the Hudson Institute is one of those few institutions that have done a lot to articulate the transatlantic partnership that it remains essential not just for Europe but for the United States, but as well for the stability of the free world.

I speak to you not only as a Croatian prime minister in my third consecutive mandate, but also as someone who is a member of the European Council for nine years, the only colleague that is longer by consecutive stage in this body’s Hungarian Prime Minister Orban. That means that nine years is a serious period of time in observing and participating in the key European decisions. And here of course the transatlantic relationship and the relations between the United States represent a very important part of our work. We recognize that our bond is not only built by sympathy, mutual sympathy, but also is built on the shared interests on culture and values and the shared willingness to defend those values. Europe and the West faced the very dangerous security environment in today’s world, perhaps the most volatile situation since the end of the Cold War. The number of theaters across the globe, which are now the crisis spots is rising.

The most difficult one is three years and now almost three months long. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine that has shattered the notion of a lasting piece in Europe. This is much bigger than the greater Serbian policy in the context of the dissolution of foreign Yugoslavia in the nineties, all Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2014 or against Georgia in 2008. All of these were moments that create an environment where the European allies with the United States need to find a common line of defending our values and defending the international order based on international law and multilateral cooperation is essential. The Russian invasions reminds us that independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity are fragile unless defended. I think most of us have taken for granted the key elements of the features of the state and the unavailability of borders, the respect for each other’s territorial integrity. It used to be more or less a read in the book of international law, international relations, but we have seen now that there is a tendency in the wider concept of two conflicting views on the world order.

The one that is I would say characteristic for democracies, which is electoral periods and respect for others and ways to find cooperative ways of working with each other. And on the other side, the authoritarian regimes that basically more or less either simulate elections or are perennially elected in the context which is far from democratic and their optics is not four years electoral or five years electoral cycle. Their optics is 15, 20, 30 years. And if you have the concept of democracy and cooperative view of the international affairs and here authoritarian regimes with conflicting approach to international relations, then basically have a serious problem. And this is the world that we are currently living in and trying to work together in order to nurture the aspect of democracies and the cooperative approach. But we are pressured to strengthen our capabilities in terms of defense, to increase our interoperability and to walk away from some sort of cozy comfortable positions into the posters that many of our countries have a little bit put, I wouldn’t say far away, but certainly not in the first rank of priorities.

Now this is indeed changing and in this context, the role of NATO as the guarantor of the collective security remains as important as it was over the past decades. And with its 76 years of existence, it’s still very valid and very relevant. And the fact that two neutral countries found the need to join NATO after decades having observed NATO literally by their border speaks for itself. Here I refer of course to the last year’s effort of Finland and Sweden to become members of the alliance, and that was perhaps the most important signal how much the world has changed. Therefore, it is important that the west stands united and stands resolute in defending its core principles in increasing our capacity for deterrence and dispassion. Here I will touch a little bit on the defense investments and spending in the first administration of President Trump. Most of the European allies felt pressured to increase the defense spending.

Many thought that it was maybe not necessary that we had other priorities, health, social security, housing, business, economy, environments, infrastructure, and then in the pause between the two mandates of President Trump, another leader, but this time from the other camp, and that is Putin stepped in and with the aggression against Ukraine, everybody sort of received the wake up call and now without much hesitation, everybody’s increasing defense spending even beyond imagination. I was recently in Warsaw with the Polish Prime Minister Tusk. They’re spending 4.7% of their GDP. Greece is also above 4%. So there are many countries who have gone to the level of the investment into defense that was unimaginable until a few years ago. Croatia has on its part fulfilled the 2% pledge that we agreed within nato. We are a little bit above, but what is more important, the part of 2% that is critical and that is the modernization is now above 30%, and that means that we are investing in a wider process of abandoning Old Eastern technology and acquiring the Western one, whether it’s for our land forces, for our air force or for our marine.

In that respect, the cooperation with the key United States defense companies is very important and very strong. We are refurbishing Bradley’s armored vehicles. We are acquiring helicopters, Blackhawks, coa warriors. We are buying high Mars rocket launchers, Raider systems and many other equipment from the United States. We bought the 12 Multicom aircraft, Rafa, third generation from France, fourth generation from France as Vanko looked at me as if I made a mistake, but they have three F three is the type, yeah, sorry, F three all F three R, F three R for the experts in aviation. Not to make a mistake very important, but with these 12 planes, we have completely altered our defense capabilities. Now our as an ally is uncomparable to what it was before and let’s say that our air force in the area between Germany and Greece and Italy and Ukraine, Russia is certainly the strongest air force in that region, and therefore we are proud that we have passed the strategic political decisions and then deliver them also financially not to endanger at the same parallel at the same time, the processes of joining Eurozone where we had to be very careful to fulfill the master criteria because it was a big investment for our standards.

In that respect, we shall invest more in defense. We expect that from the moment when I became prime minister, that was in 2016, let’s say by the end of our mandate, we shall increase our defense spending for five times once, not two times, three, four, but five times. This is really huge and gives you an idea how Croatia defense spending looks like. So this is important in order to be there. Whatever the new benchmark will be determined, I assume at the next NATO summit that we would be ready to attain it in a reasonable and foreseeable period of time, which is ahead of us when it comes to the cooperation between the United States and Croatia. Here I have to emphasize besides defense, which is very good, I have to emphasize the energy cooperation. Croatia has also in my mandate, in my first mandate passed a very far reaching and a long sighted decision to invest into the LNG terminal on the island of Kirk does completely ensuring diversification of the supply routes of gas.

So far we were dependent on relatively small gas that is produced internally. The rest was coming from Hungary and it was predominantly Russian gas with the LNG terminal with its capacities, first two to 2.6 billion, then increased to 2.9 to 3.1, and this year we will increase this terminal to 6.1 billion. We are making a terminal which is far beyond Croatia needs in the moment of the full capacity and consumption of our households, businesses, industry, even the big petrochemical industry. We need 2.4 billion cubic meters of gas a year. That means that we have a substantial amount of gas to be transported to our neighbors, whether it’s Hungary, whether it’s Slovenia, Boian, Herzegovina, Austria, who is interested in Bavaria in Germany, we certainly come to a position of a regional role and we are not only happy that we have the terminal because it was in a way like this first mandate, we make a decision to build it and buy it.

We procure a hundred million euros from the EU funds. The budget gives another a hundred million, the government decision and 35 million from two companies. Our gas transport company and the Croatian electro energetic company gave the remaining amount of funds. So in total it was 235 million. Now it looks very cheap. When the crisis energy crisis started, my fellow colleagues Prime Minister asked me, where did you buy the ship? How much did it cost? And when I told them the price, they almost fell and say what we are being offered is at least two or three times more, meaning that we made a good decision at the right moment and we were ready for the crisis because the LNG opened in January of 21 and now its capacities are booked until 20 37, 20 37 fully booked. And now in the third mandate, we shall be extending its capacity. Actually the operation will happen in the course of this year.

So from 3.1 to 6.1, thus being a proper regional hub. And moreover, there is a massive investments in the transport pipelines for gas, 559 million euros for 216 kilometers of pipelines, new completely bigger pipelines for greater capacity, but not only for gas, but they’re being done in a way that they can in the future be used to transport hydrogen, which means it’s a long-term investment through the repower EU funds that we are using with a lot of ambition for Croatia regional energy hub role in the future. And this is also falling within the context of the United States Croatia Energy Corporation, namely we are together in the three CS initiative. And in 2016 when the initiative was launched, one of the aspects was the energy cooperation. We flagged immediately in 2017 the LNG terminal and we delivered and it’s there and represents our part of deal and the contribution for the energy cooperation.

To give you an idea, out of 112 ships that came to Croatia terminal, 75 of them came from the United States, meaning 65% of the liquified natural gas that comes to Croatia is of the United States origin. When it comes to the cooperation between the EU and nato, I think we should be working together with a lot of trust and confidence in each other, strive for more predictability for more allied attitude between the two. And that’s meaning from security concerns, defense cooperation, energy cooperation trade policy because we were relying on each other for decades. And I think maintaining this partnership is essential. We of course respect that everybody takes cares of their own interests just as we are fighting for those who elect us and the countries that are our homelands, but such a strong bond that has governed the world over the past eight decades must be maintained.

This is the position of my country and my government and we should be always having that in mind, trying to be equally committed to NATO and European Union, but work very strongly on the more strategic capabilities of Europe. I think that in this crisis we have understood, especially since the United Kingdom as the other nuclear power now has left the union and we have only France, that we should be working more on our defense and strategic capabilities. In the transatlantic concept, we should be supporting each other. When it comes to the challenges of the illegal migration, United States is faced with this issue. Europe is faced by three or four roots, even the central Mediterranean, Western Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean, Western Balkans, and even the Nordic ones because even the Lithuanians and Poles have a pressure of illegal migrants coming from Middle East and Africa, all of a sudden appearing and coming from the northern direction, something that never existed before.

So these are similar challenges. We in Croatia have deployed 6,500,000 border police men who are guarding our border, especially with Bosnian her because over there we have a lot of green border Serbia and the northern part of Bosnia are luckily for us, basically a natural border, which is the rivers of Dan and River of Saba, but where we have mountains and green area that these are the typically used roots by smugglers to move people from let’s say direction of Turkey towards western European countries. But here in a concerted manner, in cooperation with the countries that are neighboring and also with a lot of cooperation within the eu, we have diminished these numbers substantively and we have of course taken to justice the smugglers who are using and abusing the initiatives of some of the people who want to simply find the better conditions for their life and for their future, but not in an illegal manner.

And this is an area of cooperation which needs to be addressed very seriously. So when I look at today at the role of the European Union, the context of the world challenges, I think that the policy of strengthening the internal cooperation, first of all, finding ways for more own resources, this will be the key debate now that we should be starting and commencing. As of this summer, the EU comes at a phase to discuss the next seven year budget, which is 28 34 probably we would say it’s the usual thing. It is the usual thing, but it comes at the moment when we are supposed to be starting to repaying the EU next generation loans. And this was a huge financial effort to alleviate the pressures of the Covid crisis and many of the member states use this money for economic growth and various policy areas where we should be.

Were supposed to work more than before after the Covid pandemic and the economic fallback that has occurred. So for you to understand, the yearly budget of the EU is 180 billion euros. Every year we’ll have to repay between 20 and 30 billion euros of loans. So you can’t just reduce it from 180 to 160 or 150 because some of the policies can’t be financed. And in order to supplement that, we will have to find a way how to increase the budget of the U perhaps to remain at the same level. But when we calculate the costs of supporting, for instance Ukraine, both in military terms, but also in terms of economic and financial flows of this very big country with its ambition and the aspiration to join the union, then we will have to be creative in finding more own resources because there is no other magical recipe with some sort of front loading or headroom as we call of these terms in technical way, when the budgetary policies are being discussed at the European level.

In that respect, it’ll require a lot of courage. I’m very pleased that we now have a new German government because for a while I don’t recall, I have to admit I’m not only observing but leaving European policies. I don’t remember a situation where we had the unprecedented no confidence into the German government and the French government without majority. So the Franco German Axi was a little bit shaken last couple of months, and therefore this new development, and it was clear from yesterday’s statement by Macron and Mez that they’re ready to, let’s say, be back in the joint way in the driving seat, which I think it’s good for Europe and it’ll be good for the transatlantic partnership and the transatlantic relations so far for the introduction. Otherwise it’ll be too long. Thank you very much. Shall I sit? Well,

Daniel Kochis:

Thank you sir, very much for those opening thoughts. I think you hit really all of the key areas that I wanted to touch upon in our discussion, but some things I wanted to maybe put a bit of a finer point to is the Trump administration has obviously put quite a bit of emphasis and capital into their negotiations over the end of the Russian war against Ukraine. These have yet to bear substantial fruit if this effort fails, what is your message around Washington and here to the administration, to congressional leaders about why the US should remain engaged and how are you in Croatia looking at talking to the public about maintaining the support that you’ve given to the Ukrainians thus far?

Andrej Plenković:

I’m a strong supporter of Ukraine and Croatian government has from the 24th of February, extended not only political supports, technical humanitarian, but also strong military support. Ukraine. Of course, our capabilities are far away from the United States, but let’s say that we have given, I would say, support, which is far above our weight because Croatia was a country in war and we had stocks that were serious and substantive, and the Ukrainians appreciated this support. First of all, the political analysis. We have clearly understood that President Trump doesn’t perceived this war as his war. This is the starting point, and I think you know it here in Washington, but in Europe it takes a while to understand it. It’s a war that happened on the second. Russia’s aggression happened in the times of the Democratic administration in the first one in Obama time, second one in Biden time. So politically he’s not identified with it as a political stance.

Second point, he wants to be the peacemaker, which is of course very positive, but it is not simple to deal with Russia and Putin an attaining peace because the objectives are so far away from each other. Ukraine has objective of regaining the temporarily occupied territory and controlling its land as anybody would do in their situation. Russia wants to keep everything that they have so far occupied temporarily because it’s already annexed into the legal and constitutional framework and the position of the United States is to stop the killing. So what are the positive elements? Positive elements, of course, if there is peace, nobody would be against peace. But the problem is what type of peace and is it a peace that would finally sanction the aggressor IE that after a while will say, okay, better that there is no more killing and some of the territory that belong to a neighboring country now will change the owner as if it was an acquisition of property.

That is certainly not a very good scenario, not good for Ukraine, not good for international order. And of course it’s a signal to any bully in the future to basically use the precedent and say, okay, I’m bigger and stronger. I like this part of my neighborhood region and I’ll take it away and that’s it. This is the big danger. So I think that the comprehensive solution should not neglect the international law. We will of course never recognize the territories that might not be physically integrated in Ukraine, whether it’s crime or whether it’s Don Han Anos roia, because from our perspective, it’s the end of the international order as we know it based on international law and multilateralism. Then we can simply scrap the international law books and throw them into Dustin and say, this was before, now it’s a new methodology in town.

Daniel Kochis:

I think you had talked about this a month or two ago about any solution needs to be just and principled, and in some ways we’re faced with these monumental challenges, but the fundamentals are relatively the same strong NATO defense investment. You touched upon in your remarks the role of the eu. Could you maybe elaborate a bit more about how you see the EU working with NATO in the defense sector? Is the eus role mainly to be sort of the piggy bank for future defense investments in Europe, or do you see a further role for the European Union in that specific sector?

Andrej Plenković:

Well, I think there is a huge change undergoing this second commission of Ursula has for the first time commissioner responsible for defense. This is a precedent. It didn’t exist before. When you look at the substance of the white paper, which the commission issued just before our last European council, but it was a day before, so we couldn’t substantively enter into it. We’ll enter into it very soon. There are many novelties and many changes, and if you look at it as an observer or an actor this time, Europe is far more serious on strengthening its own defense capabilities. I wouldn’t say it’s a piggy bank. How did you call it? Piggy?

Daniel Kochis:

Piggy bank?

Andrej Plenković:

Piggy bank. No, I think it’s a serious attempt to put together what we have been doing at a national level, but not in a very much of a coordinated manner, especially in terms of economy of scale, procurement, joint procurement, trying to have a thrift step forward in terms of our capabilities and also being interoperable. When you look at the effort of the European Union to increase the technological base of our defense industry, I think it is the most important aspect on the long run, and also strengthen our defense capabilities immediately because there are countries who have a historical negative experience of Russia and they fear the negative precedence. It’s not the same if you are somewhere in the Atlantic or you are in the central Europe at the borderline, it’s a completely different optics because after Ukraine, after Georgia, we were saying in 2022, I’m always afraid when China is the host of the Olympics.

Remember Georgia in 2008, it was in the midst of summer Olympics 2022. It was in the midst of winter Olympics, which were taking place in China. So whenever there is China hosting Olympics, we have to be careful when it comes to security and this is how things occurred. And I believe that the European Union will be much stronger in the future in terms of defense cooperation than it was so far. We had a big evolution since the beginning of 2000 with the European security strategy, et cetera, et cetera. But in a way it was more theoretical and exercise wise. Now we are shifting from theoretical and exercise wise into a serious potential theaters and scenarios where our military capabilities should be ready and operative.

Daniel Kochis:

Some of the discussion that we had earlier was around the LNG energy exports, that along with the pipelines, the renewables, which are being built out in Croatia, that is I think really expanding your nation’s role, not only just in the region but within the European Union. Can you talk a little bit about how you see energy as a linkage between the US and Croatia? There’s discussions even around nuclear reactors and some of the technology there and how you see that tying into your upcoming chairmanship of the three Cs initiative.

Andrej Plenković:

Yes. Well, I believe that the future of the energy policy is the future of our economic policy and our financial stability. When you look at Europe as a continent, we are not at all sovereign in terms of energy. We are importing over 90% of our oil, over 80% of our gas, 45% of our coal, and we are in the big process of the economic transition or energy transition into the renewable energies, which cannot as quickly supplement the needs of the fossil fuels. And this is, in my view, the most critical aspect of our policy. Where is Croatia in that context? In first mandate, as I said, I wanted to ensure the diversification of energy supplies. We are lucky to be the coastal state. We with a huge beautiful coast of the Adriatic and we have the crude oil terminal, and we have the l and g terminal, meaning we have completely become independent of anything that is coming from the east.

Had we not done then that we would be naked, so to say, and completely energy dependent, and that is not very wise. So in energy terms, we are secure in terms of supply, and we assumed the role of a regional hub because using such a geostrategic position that we have and the very good infrastructure either from before the one that we are building now, we want to use it for other countries and provide them more energy security at home. We also made sure that the energy is not there, but that it is affordable. If I look back at the last five years, I’m the prime minister coming from a center right party. My philosophy is responsibility of an individual, freedom of entrepreneur and the social market economy and as little state as possible. What was I doing in practice last six years? I was creating safety nets all the time.

If I want to be diplomatic and polite, if I want to be very straightforward, we were conducting an interventionist policy regulating prices of oil, dairy rates, subsidizing electricity, subsidizing gas for houses, businesses, institutions, kindergarten schools, universities, hospitals, people older for retired ones. Had we not done that, they wouldn’t be able to pay their monthly charges. And this role of a state in the matter of crisis combined with lowering taxes, especially the ratio of the VAT for the most consumed products, limiting basket of most frequently bought products by our citizens. We have now 70 products at the list and still subsidizing the gasoline or whether it’s diesel or super, we’ve made sure that the social cohesion can be counted and instead of losing jobs, we created in our mandate 330,000 new jobs. And that’s why we have the highest employment ever. So these were tough choices.

We had to adapt very quickly into new role. You have to change your posture. You have to go against your let’s say, program and your political affiliation. But when I look back, those were the right decisions to do. I mean, I was sitting at European council where we said, look, enough is enough with the prices of gas skyrocketing. We realized that speculators in the midst of the crisis were gaining so much money that it was unacceptable. And we said, that is enough, and we kept the prices of gas, and that was the most important strategic decision. As soon as we have done that, the prices have gone down and consequently the prices of electricity as well. Had we not done that, we would be in sort of perennial crisis of very expensive energy sources for our citizens. We are now, I was just reading this morning, together with Hungary, the second country in terms of favorable prices of energy.

Daniel Kochis:

I have that in my notes.

Andrej Plenković:

Yes, we are reading the same notes.

Daniel Kochis:

Aware that regionally you’ve been a supporter of Bosnia, Hertz, Gina’s, EU accession. There was the defense cooperation treaty signed recently with your neighbors. What is the role that you’d like to see the Trump administration play in terms of getting the Balkan stabilized and being engaged in a way that perhaps the Biden administration?

Andrej Plenković:

Yes, we are now exactly in the year, which will commemorate 30th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accord from Bosnian. It was a very important moment when the war was stopped in the region generally, except for a few years later, the war between Serbia and Kosovo, but for Croatia and Boston and her, that meant the end of the war operations. And when I look back, this piece agreement was predominantly, of course, in cooperation with other key global powers within the Quint context was predominantly brokered by the United States in the US administration. It was even called Pax Americana at the time. So you have a credibility of the diplomatic and foreign policy legacy of the European, of the United States in the region for the good implementation and the well-functioning of the country that was torn apart basically in the context of Milia, which is aggression first against Slovenia, Croatia, then Bosnian her and few years later.

So what I am advocating is a strong engagement of United States. There are many other important crisis spots, whether it’s Middle East, whether it’s Ukraine, whether it’s other areas in the world, but never, let’s say, allow the United States to completely neglect the Balkans because this is per definition in a very volatile region. I’m not saying there is any imminent conflict coming, but we have a serious situation. We had it in Kosovo, in ska, for instance. We by a millimeter avoided bigger conflict between Kosovo and Serbia by millimeter. It was by chance that it was avoided since we are closed, let’s say that the level of our intelligence information is sufficient to pass such a judgment of not being here in the position of someone who reads the papers and then concludes, but someone who knows a little bit more about that context. And the international community somehow passed relatively easy as if the crisis didn’t exist.

And 10 days later, the same approach was done when Azerbaijan took over Nagar Caba, also, everybody pretended that it wasn’t happening. So these two events in a span of two weeks showed us the moment when the key actors can simply look away. And this is not normally the usual policy. So my advice for the United States administration to stay strongly involved in the region, both in terms of security economy investment, the more investment and the more stability, the faster the road towards the EU for us, Boian her key. It’s a country that we border from the north, from the west, and from the south. CROs are one of the three constituent peoples. We want to support them. We have a constitutional obligation and the policy obligation to take a good look of their rights and situation. And that is how we should be acting in the future, of course, as a friend and the neighbor. And we are the most fervent advocate of Boston, her European perspective.

Daniel Kochis:

Well, thank you, sir. I don’t want to make you late for your next meetings, but I think that that’s a great note to end on. If you would please join me in thanking the corrosion prime minister for being here today. Thank you.