Dr. Gordan Bakota and Dr. Reiner Haseloff – Picture by Stk, Ines Berger.
Wednesday, 21 October 2020, Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany: Premier Dr. Reiner Haseloff received H.E. Dr. Gordan Bakota, Ambassador of the Republic of Croatia, in the State Chancellery for his inaugural visit.
In addition to a lively exchange on bilateral cooperation between the two countries, the talks focused on current issues such as the acute challenges of the Sars-CoV2 pandemic. Also with a view to Magdeburg’s application to become European Capital of Culture 2025, the discussion partners were able to exchange experiences in Croatia: Under the motto “Port of Diversity”, Rijeka, the second largest city in the South-East European state, is this year’s capital of culture.
In June, Croatia handed over the baton of the EU Council Presidency to Germany as the first country of the new presidency trio (Germany-Portugal-Slovenia). Croatia held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2020 for the first time since its accession to the EU in 2013.
Bilateral relations are close in economic and scientific terms: in 2019 goods worth around 57.3 million euros were exported to Croatia from Saxony-Anhalt. Similarly, imports reached a new high of around 49.9 million euros.
Within the framework of European Territorial Cooperation, Saxony-Anhalt and Croatia have been working together in the INTERREG Central Europe project “DelFin” since 2019 in the field of promoting social entrepreneurship in rural regions with special transformation problems. Croatia is a pioneer in this field and has already developed and formulated its own national strategy.
In the field of higher education, both the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (in the fields of ethnology and Slavic studies) and the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg (Faculty of Human Sciences) maintain cooperation with the University of Zagreb. There are also contacts between the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences and the Algebra University College in Zagreb.
During his stay in Saxony-Anhalt, Ambassador Gordan was also received by the President of the State Assembly, Gabriele Brakebusch.
For further information
Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Germany: http://de.mvep.hr/hr/vijesti-i-najave/veleposlanik-gordan-bakota-u-posjetu-pokrajini-saska-anhalt,62550.html
Government of Saxe-Anhalt: https://europa.sachsen-anhalt.de/internationales/aktuelles-international-2020/botschafter-der-republik-kroatien-zum-antrittsbesuch-in-der-staatskanzlei/
