Croatia Names New Minister for Foreign Affairs and European Integration

 Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration

Zagreb, Croatia, February 17, 2005 – Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović has been confirmed as Croatia's new Minister for Foreign Affairs and European Integration by the Croatian Parliament on February 17. Her appointment follows the government's decision to merge its ministries of foreign affairs and European integration into one ministry to facilitate activities related to its EU membership drive.

Grabar-Kitarović, until now the Minister of European Integration, is also Head of Delegation for the negotiations on the accession of Croatia to the EU.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader told parliament members that the main reason for the merging was the wish to avoid any overlapping of the two ministries' activities.

“This way the government will be more efficient, mobile and homogeneous,” the Prime Minister said, adding that the proposal to integrate the two ministries had been supported by the European Commission.

The Croatian Parliament also approved the appointments of Damir Polčanec as Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy and Neven Ljubičić as the new Health and Social Welfare Minister. The appointments follow the departure of Deputy Prime Minister Andrija Hebrang, the Health and Social Welfare Minister, who resigned earlier last month for health reasons.