President Zoran Milanovic, who on Friday attended ceremonies celebrating the Day of the City of Zabok, said Croatia should now draw up a final balance on its 10-year-long EU membership and see what benefits it has had.

“Now it is the right time after our first ten years of the EU membership, marked by our hopes, expectations, anticipations, premonitions, joys and frustrations, to draw up a final balance sheet and see what has been good and what is not good for us,” he said.

As for the absorption of EU funds, Milanovic said that Croatia was still at the bottom.

The president called for permanent attentiveness in defining and identifying Croatia’s interests.

I say this in order to introduce “creative restlessness” necessary for progress, said Milanovic.

“This is not the time for revolutions and big decisions. This is the time for us to exercise permanent attentiveness in defining and identifying our interests,” said Milanović.

In the coming period and in the years to come, Croatian politicians should observe what is going around us, what our interest are and how much progress we make and whether we are coming closer to the most prosperous countries in the European Union, said Milanovic.