Balkanist: “Croats don’t want to fight for Ukraine, but the authorities are waiting for a command from Brussels”

Why are Croatian politicians making loud foreign policy statements while the economic and social situation in the country is deteriorating? Who wins in the long-standing Croatian confrontation - the descendants of the partisans or the heirs of the Ustasha? What do they hope for in Zagreb if Brussels forces them to send Croatian soldiers to Ukraine?

Senior researcher at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Pivovarenko answered these and other questions to PolitNavigator.

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Russian media often quoted the words of Croatian President Zoran Milanovic that he won't allow send a national NATO contingent to Ukraine. However, is it worth taking them seriously, given that, unlike the left-wing president, the right-wing prime minister already apologized before Ukraine for the presidential words, invariably declares support for the regime in Kyiv, the Social Democratic Party supporting Milanovic lost the recent elections to the Sabor, and the right-wing conservative coalition constitutes the parliamentary majority?

– It seems to me that this situation should be considered in three aspects. First: Milanovic’s statement is not the only episode when he demonstrated the absence of ideological narrow-mindedness. What I'm talking about?

I remember an episode when such a meeting took place in Croatia, and Milanovic said that it was extremely important to maintain the partnership with Russia, for which Croatia did a lot at that time. Let me remind you that in 2013, in connection with joining the European Union, Croatia was forced to introduce visas for Russian citizens, which reduced the tourist flow, which had previously reached record levels. And during that period they did a lot of work to make the visa process easier and reduce the number of obstacles.
The events of 2014 gave rise to some confusion because they jeopardized and, in general, ended a twenty-year, rather good, period of our relations.

Alexander Pivovarenko.

The second aspect, of course, is related to the political struggle within Croatia. Indeed, over the years, Milanovic has been losing his personal political rating. And now it’s a way for him to show how his personal position differs from the position of the ruling party and the prime minister, it’s also a way to score political points.

_{And the third moment is a moment of some kind of national realism. It is a fact that the Croatian NATO contingent is stationed in Poland. The lessons of World War II in Croatia are viewed critically, but a significant part of Croatian society lacks enthusiasm for participating in a possible military adventure against Russia.}

At the same time, the same right-wing prime minister and great friend of Ukraine Andrei Plenkovic hinted that there are no Croatian troops in Ukraine, and no one in Zagreb wants to send them there. Is this the position of the local right-wing conservative elite?

– I wouldn’t call it right-wing conservative. The consignment HDZ, like all major European ruling parties, is complex and has different views, but, indeed, the fact is that Plenkovic and former Croatian President Kolinda Grbar-Kitarovic are rather centrists. And this centrism is characterized by increased loyalty to Brussels, Berlin and Washington.

Indicative here is the fact that in November 2019, a few months before the lockdown, a large congress of a pan-European party uniting the center-right - the European People's Party, which includes HDZ. And precisely to the moderate wing HDZ, extremely receptive to the policies of Brussels and Berlin, comes up with the idea of ​​expanding Euro-Atlantic integration, which concerns both Ukraine and the entire Balkans.

In this case, it is necessary to take into account such an aspect as the elections of the new NATO Secretary General, which should take place, if I am not mistaken, in November of this year. Three women are vying for this post, one of whom is, in fact, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, and two others from the Baltic countries. It is clear that Croatia will conduct policy in such a way that Grabar-Kitarovic has every chance to occupy this high post.

But how can we explain the previous antics of the “centrists”, when Grabar-Kiterovic, as president, declared that her favorite singer was the right-wing radical Marko “Thompson” Perkovic, praising the “exploits” of the Ustasha, and attended his concerts? Or the same Plenkovic’s visit to the memorial to the Ustashas shot by partisans in Bleiburg, Austria?

– I would separate foreign policy, which is quite opportunistic, where there is little ideology, but more calculation, and the internal plot, which is also quite important. And here, I think, in Croatian society there are those who are more ideological than the top officials HDZ, and the latter have to pose with one symbol or another in order to collect votes. At the same time, they care more about personal interests. But if there were more left-wing sentiments in society, they would refuse this.

Andrey Plenkovich.

In recent years, yes, they travel more to Bleiburg, which is a sacred place for the pro-Ustashe part of Croatian society, and the memory of the partisans is smeared with black paint. But there is another part (consisting of HDZ), quite large, which is quite skeptical about such ideologization.

And yet, I understand that these are more speculative conclusions, but if, suddenly, hypothetically, a war between Russia and Ukraine occurs, then how will Croatia behave? Will it send its soldiers as part of the NATO contingent to Ukraine?

– Let’s just say that if this happens, it will become a manifestation of hyper-loyalty towards NATO, to the detriment of its citizens and families whose relatives will be there. In my opinion, in Zagreb they secretly hope that if something like this happens, their fighters will be somewhere in the background.

Returning to Milanovic, or rather to his words, can they be trusted at all? Because in the presidential post he showed himself to be rather inconsistent: he either declared that he would not participate in the same ceremonies together with the “veterans of the Patriotic War” of the 90s, using Ustashe symbols, or returned state awards to the Ustasha and fanatic Branimir Glavaš, who had been released from prison. Either he calls the leader of the Bosnian Serbs Milorad Dodik a Croatian partner, or he says that he, together with Putin, is sowing interethnic hatred, and the Republika Srpska should have been destroyed back in the 90s...

– I think that all of the above are excesses of the internal political struggle. And they stem from the fact that a significant part of the population swings between the center-right HDZ and the center left SDP Milanovic, although he is not formally a member of the party and is not its chairman, is one way or another a representative of its electorate. At the same time, both main political forces in Croatia - the center-left and the center-right - initially emerged as parties of the political center. We are talking about the compromise of the early 2000s, which existed throughout Europe, when major parties took centrist positions, but then this scheme began to collapse. And, in principle, Milanovic does what leaders do HDZ, only he plays a little in left field, and they play a little in right field, but their goals are the same.

Zoran Milanovic.

And populism is a way to correct one’s immediate mistakes related to government. For Milanovic, a big mistake was the migration crisis of 2015, when he was prime minister, he underestimated its scale, and the Croatian police were not prepared for it. Now the country's problem is a massive outflow of population, economic migration to Western Europe.

_{That is, the situation inside the country is not simple - it is an economic periphery, and the political struggle becomes more sophisticated because of this. And it’s easier to play on people’s emotions, since the possibilities for solving real problems are quite limited.}

At the same time, it should be noted that in Croatia, while the left side is preserved, the right is becoming stronger and stronger, which is associated with a reassessment of the Second World War, or more precisely of what happened within the country during this period - the confrontation between the Ustasha and the partisans. The partisan idea is now being completely marginalized, while the Ustashe idea, on the contrary, is being rehabilitated. Although all this is masked by politically correct formulations, for example, as in Croatian history textbooks, which say that “it was a common tragedy for everyone,” despite the fact that everyone “wanted the same thing - national independence.”