Mr Speaker of the Parliamentary Assembly,
Prime Minister,
Ladies and gentlemen members of the Assembly,
 
I am deeply honoured to have been invited as the first President of the Republic of Croatia to speak before the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This honour stirs up strong feelings in me, first of all, of responsibility and gratitude. Above all, ladies and gentlemen – this is an honour stirring up in me a feeling of responsibility for the future of your country and our country and their citizens. Therefore, I would like to dedicate this honour to your children and our children, to new generations to whom we all owe responsibility, commitment to peace and a vision of prosperity.
 
The Republic of Croatia is not merely a neighbour of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it is also its sincere friend, partner and ally. Together with you and our other neighbours our wish is to make this region, which has often suffered much in its recent and remote past, an area of lasting peace, freedom and progress. Today, I have come to confirm this friendship and partnership. I have come as a friend to a friend, as a neighbour to a neighbour, without any ulterior motives.
 
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia are very special neighbours; so special that - I am deeply convinced - we do not even need a Special Relations Agreement. We do not need interpreters to understand each other, just wisdom and goodness. Whether some like it or not, both our cultures and our history are inseparably intertwined. History is not always nice or easy. Throughout centuries these areas witnessed the intertwining of nobleness, profound friendships and understanding but also evil, blood and suffering. It is with good reason that we ask ourselves whether Bosniacs, Serbs and Croats, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia are to one another the curse of the past or the blessing of the future. The answer depends on us, our capability to draw lessons from history and transform those lessons into a vision of peaceful policy, understanding and cooperation.
 
But what about our past? With the evil past that does not let us go on to the future restraining us as though having leaden balls on our feet? This past need not be forgotten, but we must not live in it. For a crime to remain in the past, it needs to face its punishment and victims deserve respect. There are no criminal peoples, there are just criminals and criminal acts, which are all the worse if committed allegedly in the name of a people. Here, in Bosnia in Herzegovina, Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs all have their victims, those who suffered and for whom I feel deep respect and compassion, regardless of the people they belong to. Any lost life is a loss for all of us. Tomorrow, I shall visit the sites of horrible crimes, for those crimes to be condemned once again. I shall bow before the victims whose only sin was that they were the others, different. Religious leaders, politicians, citizens and relatives of the victims will join me. I consider this to be a noble readiness to forgive and build a common future. Only law and justice can rid our nations of the evil of mutual accusations for past misdeeds and make sure that such evil never happens again. It must never be repeated!
 
The politics of the 1990s that – either out of malevolence, ignorance, arrogance or foolishness – believed that the solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina was its partition sowed ill-fated seeds both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in their own countries. Seduced peoples and individuals reaped war, death and the mutilation of hundreds of thousands, millions of displaced persons, devastated economies, destroyed families. Here, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, they left behind a torn fabric of indisputably a special social and cultural organism based on multi-ethnicity and multi-confessionality. I deeply regret that the Republic of Croatia pursuing its politics in the 1990s also contributed to that. I deeply regret that such Croatian politics led to human sufferings and to divisions that still plague us today. A new age has come, an age when one resolutely needs to recognise mistakes of former times and courageously tread on a new path, a path that will lastingly bring peace, stability and prosperity to the region.
 
Ladies and gentlemen,
 
I have recalled the past, but I wish to talk about the future, progress, co-existence, optimism and our European future. This European future of ours is no longer just a dream, this future is realistic, at hand, almost reality. Croatia is a NATO member and very soon, I am confident, it will be a member of the EU as well. However, the Croatian European project will not be complete as long as our neighbours too, first of all Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, are not its part. I have come here to express the full support of the Republic of Croatia to the European and Euro-Atlantic orientation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to offer our partnership. Croatia strongly and wholeheartedly supports Bosnia and Herzegovina on its path towards NATO and the European Union and is ready to provide any assistance. As a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Croatia strongly supports the progress of Bosnia and Herzegovina towards its membership through the first steps in the Membership Action Plan (MAP) and it will continue to do so in the future as well. Prime Minister Kosor and I have resolutely spoken about this a number of times at major international fora.
 
A new age has begun, a new age that requires new politics. Instead of former conflicts and confrontations you will have the full wholehearted support and assistance of the Republic of Croatia on the path of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the EU and NATO.
 
For this reason, I invite you, our friends from Bosnia and Herzegovina, to make your dream about Europe come true. I am not talking about an illusion. I am talking about something very probable, something within reach. After all, Croatia is on the very threshold of fulfilling this goal.
 
Allow me to use here the constitutional-political phraseology of Dayton: European Bosnia and Herzegovina is a vital national interest of Croatia. Regardless of whom you may represent in authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, make membership in the European Union your vital national interest for the benefit of your country and its citizens.
 
Offer partnership for Europe to your citizens as their leaders. Find strength to overcome your doubts and fears as well as theirs.
 
Ladies and gentlemen,
 
We, your neighbours, consider the stability and prosperity of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be our national interest too as a token of not only our, but European peace and prosperity as well. You will soon be in the position to decide on the future of your country, on constitutional amendments guaranteeing the stability and functionality of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Neither of the three constituent peoples, Bosniacs, Serbs and Croats, cannot find the success formula by themselves. All of us, your neighbours and friends, as well as major world powers, can only offer our good services, our assistance. However, we cannot decide instead of you. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a sovereign state of three constituent peoples and its citizens. Success lies in the way of finding formula for ensuring equal rights and protection for peoples and for each and every individual in the entire territory of your beautiful country. Croatia has exceptional interest in the success of the negotiations, both as a neighbour and as a state which has a constitutional obligation to care for Croats living outside the Republic of Croatia. We urge the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina to realise their equality through an agreement with the other two peoples. Bosnia and Herzegovina is possible if it is a genuine community of peoples with equal rights, a state that will be a good home to each individual, regardless of the people he/she belongs to. The Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who also suffered greatly in the war, whose number in Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost halved, recognise Bosnia and Herzegovina, I firmly believe, as their homeland and the state in which they see their future. Bosniacs and Serbs are their partners in the project of a European Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The politics that in the 1990s saw the solution in partition and divisions, in the supremacy of one over the others, in the exclusion of others, in the disrespect for human rights, in force and violence, in injustice and the deliberate spread of fear, must be abandoned once and for all. The new age calls for new politics.
 
The politics of continuous confrontation, of suspecting others should give place to politics that will care for the freedom, security and prosperity of man. We must never again allow chauvinist and extremist politics to jeopardise the existence, the right to freedom of expression and the full development of the identity of any individual, people or group in society!
 
Ladies and gentlemen,
 
While political élites are busy with fears, distrust and disputes over the past, élites of the underworld are taking advantage of the state’s weaknesses and lack of adjustability. They readily use the advantages of a supranational globalised world. Their vital interest is to restrict the freedom of the individual, keep the state administration in a state of chaos and disfunctionality instead of the rule of law, maintain corrupt networks and lead our countries away from the EU and the EU away from our countries. Shall we tolerate integration in crime while engaging ourselves in conflicts over integration serving for the good? Fortunately, our states have recognised that we can act against organised and trans-national crime, against war crimes, only by joining forces.
 
The new age brings new challenges, particularly economic ones. Regional politics and cooperation of all the states in the region, including Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, will increasingly unfold through economic cooperation, trade, common economic and infrastructural projects and joint appearances on third markets. Our economies are compatible. Today, more than ever, economies cease to be national under the unstoppable flood of globalisation. National economies that remain shut in themselves stagnate and decay. Only open economies and open societies with a strong rule of law and well organised and a functioning civil service prosper. I am certain that our two states should cooperate closely in the implementation of our energy policies, transportation networks, industry, agriculture and tourism. Our economies are inseparably bound to each other. For instance, as much as the construction of corridor Vc is vitally important for the internal integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so it is equally important for connecting Croatia's north and south.
 
In conclusion and especially due to the fact that the diplomatic corps is present here, allow me from this highest rostrum in Bosnia and Herzegovina to invite all of you representatives of political parties, the European Union, the United States of America and the entire international community and in particular our neighbour the Republic of Serbia, since this is also the realisation of its vital interest: Let us put our minds and our hands together for Bosnia and Herzegovina!
 
All of us – Bosniacs, Serbs and Croats, Europeans in general – must find the strength to overcome doubts and fears, to break the vicious circle that the bad politics of the past led us into.
 
This is possible only if we place the equality of peoples and the protection of individuals in the centre of our political and public actions. Every individual is free to be a Croat, Bosniac, Serb, Jew or Romany, Orthodox, Moslem, Catholic or atheist. Let every individual be free to assert his/her right to be healthy, educated and happy. Let us place peoples and individuals who aspire to peace and freedom for themselves, their families and future generations in the centre of our vital interests; those who are not captives of the past and are not afraid of the future; those who wish to see – as soon as possible – that the European principle of visa-free movement is applied to all citizens, who wish to see an area without firm borders among states and peoples; people without the feeling that they are guests in Europe or that they are not equal in Europe. This vision of the future is what binds us firmly together.
 
In building such a future I wish all of you, us and the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina much success. Thank you.