President Zoran Milanovic on Wednesday emphasised the importance of unanimity in decision-making in the European Union to prevent small countries such as Croatia being marginalised and outvoted in taking important decisions.

“We need to be ready to defend our interests in given circumstances and not allow ourselves to be marginalised. This is an important topic. The European Union has its ways of decision-making. As for security and defence, which is the foundation of a state, decision-making is based on the principle of unanimity, and there is no outvoting. These rules have been in place in the EU for decades and it was under these rules that we and all other states joined the EU,” Milanovic said at a graduation ceremony for new army officers at the Military Academy in Zagreb.

He noted that some large member states were exerting pressure to change this principle and make decisions by a majority or a large majority of votes, which would mean that decisions would be made by the largest states.

“I am against it and will fight against it because I consider it a deceit, a betrayal of why we joined the EU and harmful to the Croatian national interests,” the president said.

“We are a small nation, but not a secondary one. You are the only army in the present-day European Union and NATO whose predecessors had to fight with arms, without anyone’s help, to create this state. Our country comes first to us, everything else in which we participate — the European Union, NATO — requires our loyalty, but only after Croatia. Croatia comes first and we protect it,” Milanovic said.

He noted that the Croatian army is not politicised. “The Croatian army knows and feels the difference between the army and politics because it is led by senior officers who are aware of the the army’s role, and that is defence of the country,” the president said.