Croatian President Stepan Mesic has visited Moscow and negotiated Zagreb's possible involvement in the planned South Stream gas pipeline with Russian leaders. The relevant inter-governmental agreement is currently being drafted, a senior Government official told the paper.
Last Monday, Mesic held talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The Croatian leader negotiated with Medvedev in an informal setting. Both heads of state noted more active bilateral political contacts. It is hardly surprising that this is Mesic's fifth Moscow visit during his tenure of office. However, Russian-Croatian economic relations are not as good. Although bilateral trade turnover topped $2 billion in 2008, it has dwindled by over two-thirds in January-September 2009. "The crisis will end, and the economies will start working," Medvedev promised.
"This is a temporary trend, we will restore previous trade levels," Putin told the Croatian leader earlier. According to Mesic, Russian-Croatian economic cooperation has not yet reached the required level. Medvedev called relations in the sphere of culture and the expanding tourist industry "wonderful" and said there was also room for improvement. Curiously, the Croatian leader asked that Medvedev should not be interpreted because he understood Russian very well.
Mesic was in a repentant mood while meeting with Putin. Mesic said his policy was primarily pro-European, and that Croatia strove to establish good-neighbourly relations and to expand cooperation in Europe, but that it would now devote more attention to a once fraternal nation. Mesic who will soon celebrate his 75th birthday was the last Head of the Collective Presidency (President) of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and made a historic statement that he had accomplished his objective, and that Yugoslavia was no more.
The Croatian leader, who did not voice any history-making statements yesterday, mostly remembered the past and linked it with the future. Mesic said we can expand cooperation primarily because we advocate individual guilt and the liberation of entire nations from collective responsibility, and that this opened up new cooperation venues. Nor did the Croatian president forget about compliments. Cooperation with Russia, a major global force, is both an imperative and a privilege for us, Mesic said.
Some issues were discussed in private, rather than in front of the press. It appears that Croatia will joint the Blue Stream project. The Russian and Croatian prime ministers will prioritise this issue at their talks next year, a senior Government House official told the paper. According to the official, the parties are drafting the relevant inter-governmental agreement, whose details remain secret. In November 2009, the Russian and Slovenian energy ministers signed a similar inter-governmental agreement stipulating cooperation during the construction, operation and maintenance of a gas pipeline in Slovenia. Moscow has therefore coordinated the gas pipeline's construction with all partner countries, on whose territory the pipeline is scheduled to be built, and has involved the minimal required number of states to guarantee that the pipeline will reach Italy.
Pyotr Skobelev