Stressing that the NATO membership candidacy of Finland and Sweden is a very dangerous charlatanry that amounts to the provocation of Russia, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic informed on Tuesday that Zagreb will not ratify their membership.
Milanovic pointed out that the Croatian parliament – the Sabor- must not ratify anyone’s admission to NATO until the US and EU pressure the neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina into guaranteeing ethnic Croats their basic voting rights.
He said that it’s ok with him that the West can poke the rabid bear in the eye with a pen by allowing Finland and Sweden’s membership but underlined that will only happen after the electoral law issue in Bosnia-Herzegovina is resolved.
The current electoral system in the BiH has the ethnic Croat community recognized as equal under the 1995 constitution, but Zagreb insists on updates so that Croats in Bosnia are enabled to elect their own representatives instead of the current practice of having them elected by the much larger Bosnian Muslims’ community.
Adding that he sees Croatia’s role at this moment as a historic silver bullet, Milanovic pointed out NATO cannot admit new members without the approval of the current ones so if the two Nordic nations apply for membership, their applications must be ratified by all 30 member states.
Milanovic said that the Americans, the English, and the Germans – if they can and want to – must compel Bakir Izetbegovic to update the electoral law in the next six months and grant the elementary rights to Croats.
He noted he has had enough of them ignoring, neglecting, and sidelining Croatia as NATO and EU member so Zagreb will now wait to see what the US president or secretary of state can do for Croatia, which has been a NATO member since 2009 and joined the EU in 2013 when Milanovic was prime minister.
Milanovic also mentioned other grievances of Zagreb, such as the lack of progress in EU talks with Albania and North Macedonia – which even changed its name recently to overcome the outrageous objections from Greece to no avail – ironically underscoring that Croatia isn’t asking Finland or Sweden to change their name to Ikea, only to tell the US and the EU that these issues must be resolved.
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