Prime Minister Marin met President Milanović and Prime Minister Plenković in Croatia

On Tuesday 21 June, Prime Minister Sanna Marin visited Zagreb, where she had meetings with Croatia’s President Zoran Milanović and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.

On Monday 20 June, Marin met Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama in Tirana, and yesterday she also had meetings with the leaders of Montenegro and North Macedonia.

The topics discussed in Croatia were Finland’s application to join NATO and bilateral relations, which will be much closer when Finland becomes a member of NATO. 

Croatian Prime Minister Plenković repeated his Government’s strong support for Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership. Prime Minister Marin emphasised that Finland and Sweden will bolster the security of NATO as a whole. She pointed out that there could be no closer relation between two counties than one arising from the obligation to defend one another as part of a defence alliance. 

As EU members Finland and Croatia are already very close to each other, and topics on the EU agenda were also discussed. Marin noted that Finland has been consistently supporting the enlargement of the EU to the Western Balkan countries.

A meeting between the EU and Western Balkan leaders will be held in Brussels on Thursday, just before the European Council meeting. 

Inquiries: Jari Luoto, State Under-Secretary for European Affairs, tel. +358 50 468 5949; Lauri Voionmaa, Special Adviser (International Affairs), tel. +358 50 421 0422 and Päivi Paasikoski, Director of Government Communications, tel. +358 40 547 6279, Prime Minister's Office