Franjo Tudjman

The Hague Tribunal's archives reveal fascinating details about the confidential meeting between Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his Croatian counterpart Franjo Tudjman at Karadjordjevo in 1991, when they discussed forming their own expanded states at Bosnia's expense.

Branka Vierda of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights praised this week's decision by a Zagreb City Assembly commission to add the names of the Zec family, who were murdered in 1991, to a register of names of people who could be memorialised by having a street or public area in the Croatian capital named after them.

The European Court for Human Rights, ECHR, on Thursday ruled that Croatia does not have to give a writer access to the classified transcripts of the late President Franjo Tudjman's conversations.

Vladimir Seks, a former politician, wanted access to the documents for a book he is writing on the foundation of modern Croatia.

Ankica Lepej, perhaps the most famous whistleblower in the history of Croatia, has died of COVID-19 complications in Zagreb, Sanja Sarnavka, the human rights and women's rights activist, wrote on her Facebook profile.

Croatia announced on Wednesday that the final proposals for the motifs for future Croatian euro coins, which will replace today's national currency, the kuna, are the Croatian coat-of-arms, a geographical map of Croatia, the marten - the animal after which kuna was named, the Glagolitic script - the oldest known Slavic alphabet and the inventor Nikola Tesla who was born in central Croatia.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel at an EU-Western Balkans meeting in Brussels, February 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/VIRGINIA MAYO/POOL.

But the Social Democrat leader quickly turned the tide, navigating the campaign waters to emerge as winner of the first round in December 2019.

Milanovic verbally dominated TV duels with his opponents, outshining the conservative incumbent, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic.

Tudjman's statement was a response to international pressure to amend a law that restricted the return of property to Serbs who had been expelled or fled the country after the Croatian military's Operation Storm in August that year.

A ceremony was held to unveil the Monument to the Homeland in Zagreb on Thursday, the 21st anniversary of the death of Franjo Tudjman, the first Croatian president after the war for independence from Yugoslavia.

'Defenders of the homeland'