President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic attended a special session of the Visnjan municipal council in the northern Croatian peninsula of Istria on Saturday, where she said that small municipalities like Visnjan have a great development potential despite efforts to abolish them.

The president stressed that Visnjan, as well as other historical towns, was a science and tourism brand and an important education and astronomy centre, well known beyond Croatian borders.

The state must be able to recognise and encourage those values and the best way to do it is to give local self-government units a responsibility for their own development, the president said. The state is not here to be a patron, but a partner, Grabar Kitarovic said.

The president also noted that a fundament to every success is the people possessing creativity and vision, the ones who know what they want and are resolute to succeed. She said she was convinced the policy of regional development of Croatia should be exercised in the same way – creatively and with a vision of success of all of its parts and as a whole.