Their Majesties Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will pay an official visit to Croatia on Wednesday and Thursday, which will be the first official visit by a Spanish monarch to Croatia, the Office of the President announced on Tuesday.

The royal couple will be hosted by President Zoran Milanovic with his wife Sanja Music-Milanovic, and after the ceremonial welcome on Wednesday in the President’s Residency, a bilateral meeting between the two delegations will be held.

The official visit to Croatia comes in the year marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Croatia and the Kingdom of Spain, with the aim of confirming exceptionally good relations and providing incentives for their further development.

On Thursday, a Croatian-Spanish IFMIF-DONES forum will be held. President Milanovic and King Felipe will participate at the forum, where a Memorandum of Understanding is expected to be signed between the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation on cooperation in preparing the DONES Programme, a press release from the President’s Office said.

This project envisages a partnership between Croatia and Spain in fusion research, in addition to a partnership in the development and construction of the DONES accelerator, and a partnership between Croatian and Spanish companies in the construction of equipment for big scientific projects.

The DONES project is also an opportunity for Croatian high-tech companies, the press release added.

DONES is a Spanish-Croatian initiative and in 2018 it was included among the ESFRI projects, strategically important for the EU.

As part of the programme during the visit, Music-Milanovic and Queen Letizia will visit the SUVAG Hearing and Speech Rehabilitation Polyclinic in Zagreb on Thursday, where they will be informed of the way the polyclinic works with children, including the medical rehabilitation of preschool children.

The “Live healthy at school – training grounds for physical activity” project will also be presented to Queen Letizia at the polyclinic’s multi-sensory playground.

During the visit, King Felipe will also meet with the Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.