Croatia supports EU membership candidate status for Ukraine

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Tuesday the government strongly supports EU membership candidate status for Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed an official application for Ukraine's accession to the European Union on Monday and addressed an extraordinary session of the European Parliament by video link on Tuesday.

President Zoran Milanović has also supported Ukraine's EU membership application and recommended granting membership candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and opening accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia.

According to a statement released by the President's Office on Tuesday, President Milanović lent his support to an initiative by eight EU member states that called for Ukraine to be granted candidate status; something he believes should be granted as soon as possible.

The president said Ukraine was being subjected to aggression by Russia and they needed to be provided with the necessary assistance, just as Croatia would expect if the situations were reversed.

On Monday, the presidents of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia said in an open letter that integrating Ukraine into the European Union was one of the ways to stop the war and prevent it from spreading to the rest of Europe.

Milanović added that everything should be done to prevent the Ukraine crisis from spilling over to the Western Balkans and affecting Croatia and its immediate neighbours.

The president also called on Serbia to decide whether it really wants membership in the EU or not and to adjust its policies accordingly.