Croatian Ambassador to France Filip Vucak died on Saturday after a grave illness, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

Vucak “made a great contribution to the development of Croatian diplomacy from its beginning,” the ministry said, adding that he significantly contributed to the development of the relations with France since 2017.

Vucak had also been Croatia’s ambassador in Madrid during the intensive lobbying for the start of Croatia’s accession negotiations with the EU as well as to the Holy See, where he “persistently promoted historical facts about the blessed Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, notably when the process of Cardinal Stepinac’s canonisation began,” the ministry said.

Vucak had also been the charge d’affaires in Moscow, the foreign minister’s chief of staff and later the foreign minister’s special advisor.