There are still no reactions to the Resolution of the Croatian Diaspora Congress

News is written about things that happen. Normally, it cannot be written about something that didn’t happen. However, responsible investigative journalists are sometimes obligated to report about important situations that were expected to happen, but didn’t.

For example, neither the Croatian Government nor the country’s opposition parties have reacted in any appropriate way to the Resolution of the three day Croatian Diaspora Congress held in Zagreb almost a month ago. Media releases about the Congress and its Resolution were issued on 27^th June 2014.

It was the first congress of its kind ever. Various institutions that deal with migrant issues, both from Croatia and abroad, were well represented. The delegates were appropriately welcomed by the Croatian Parliamentary Speaker Josip Leko and the Archbishop of Zagreb Cardinal Josip Bozanić.

Despite fears that it would most likely end up short of concrete conclusions the Congress participants did produce a number of appropriate ideas and proposals that were in the end packaged as their Resolution.

The main message of the Resolution is that programs for integration between Croatia and its Diaspora must be upgraded. In order to achieve that Croatia should re-establish the abolished Emigrants’ Ministry, improve services in its diplomatic offices abroad and make amendments within its legal system to avoid discrimination towards ex-patriots.

Most importantly, the Congress Resolution expresses willingness of the emigrants living in the developed world to help Croatia recover from the current economic recession. But it stresses that Croatians living abroad oppose the so called “regional” or “Balkan” re-integrations and insist on developing democracy, national identity and economic growth in line with Croatia’s commitment to standards of the western countries with large Croatian communities.

The news is that there is no news about any newsworthy reactions to the Croatian Diaspora Congress Resolution in the mainstream media. Coincidently, there has been extensive media coverage over the past weeks of events which promoted “regional” or “Balkan” integrations.

Such events were originally designed to speed-up entries of each and every county in South Eastern Europe into the European Union. However, instead of inspiring Serbia and the other non-EU countries to make a step forward and to follow Croatia on its westward path, the events partly turned into nostalgic re-unions. From the Croatian side, they looked like that infamous and cowardly march – ‘one step forward and two steps back’, or one step westward and two steps towards the “Balkans”.

That infamous and cowardly march enjoyed an excellent treatment in the public and commercial Croatian media – something that couldn’t have gone unnoticed by the watchful eye of the potential ex-patriot investor or returnee. (Vlado Lušić)