Croatian President Says Sees No Democratic Regression in Western Balkans

Zoran Milanovic (BETAPHOTO/HINA/Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia/ Marko BELJAN)

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said in Struga, North Macedonia, on June 16 that he saw no democratic regression in any Western Balkan country, stressing that all of the region's countries should be admitted into the EU.

Asked about democratic regression in the Western Balkans at the Prespa Forum for Dialogue international conference, Milanovic said he could see none in any of the countries of the region, in spite of the widespread use of the term, and pointed to the regime change in Montenegro after a democratic election, the HINA news agency reported.

Aleksandar "Vucic is not my best friend, but he is not an enemy either. We've certainly had our disagreements and differences, but he was democratically elected," the Croatian president said, adding that institutions of the European Union, like the European Parliament or European Commission, were not completely democratic themselves.

"The European Parliament is not a democratic institution. It does not play by the standards of national parliaments. The European Commission is also not a democratic institution. It suffers from a chronic lack of accountability and that is a fact," he said, adding that the EU "must not become a federation in which all power is concentrated in Brussels.