Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman told his Czech counterpart Tomas Petricek on Wednesday that Croatia would hospitalise ten Czech COVID-19 patients and thanked him for the Czech Republic's assistance after the devastating earthquake that struck Croatia in late December.

“I wish to express gratitude for the swift humanitarian aid we received after the devastating earthquake. That was a strong gesture of solidarity speaking to our friendly relations, which go far back,” Grlic-Radman said at a joint press conference.

He expressed solidarity with the Czech people in the fight with the pandemic, saying Croatia was willing to offer ten hospital beds for Czech and ten for Slovak COVID-19 patients.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the Czech Republic’s incidence in the past two weeks has been 1,572 per 100,000 population, as against Croatia’s 162. The Czech Republic started sending its patients to Poland and Germany earlier this month.

A Czech reporter asked if the Czech patients could be treated by members of the Czech community in Croatia and Grlic-Radman said they could.

The two ministers said vaccine supply remained the main priority and supported reaching an agreement at European level to facilitate movement and travel.

Tourism

Croatia is the top destination among Czech tourists and last year, in the midst of the pandemic, more than 500,000 arrived, said Petricek, who today ended his two-day visit to Croatia.

He said Grlic-Radman informed him of what Croatia was doing for the safety of foreign tourists during the summer, and commended the government’s approach, saying it was working on reducing the danger of the virus as much as possible.

Petricek said he was confident the “Safe stay in Croatia” system was worthy of attention and added that he would discuss it with Croatia’s regional development minister as it could be applied in the Czech Republic too.

Since Croatia is introducing many digital technologies in tourism, I believe the Czech Republic could learn a lot, he said, singling out the eVisitor system.