President of the Republic at Celebration of Trogir Municipal Day: Preserve Your Unique Town

On the occasion of Trogir Municipal Day and the Day of its patron St. John of Trogir, the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović attended a formal session of the Trogir Town Council, where he called on locals to preserve their unique town.

“Trogir is much older than UNESCO, which it is often fond of mentioning, and there has been life here for a long, long time. There are few such towns on our coast; it is a unique place to live in, a unique place to reflect on history and everything that surrounds us,” said President Milanović in his address, adding that he has always been fascinated by this town which, as he put it, should be preserved.

“Prior to my arrival here I looked for one piece of data that I always look for – how much money from the town budget is spent on salaries. Seven percent, that’s not much. Seven or eight percent is very reasonable and that is one of the points I examine, especially in recent years, when I visit places throughout the country. From this I draw conclusions about how the (local authorities) use their resources, their money and how responsible they are,” said President Milanović, adding that another thing that he also examines is data on the absorption of EU funds. “And for me, that is the only and ultimate measure of success of Croatian membership, because everything else that Europe offers and provides is imposed. We consciously accepted that. It is money that Croatia has never had at its disposal and it should be taken and spent,” said the President.

He believes that so far we have not been doing things in the right way. “The reason may be that we are the most inexperienced, that we are the newest member and I sincerely hope that this will soon not be the case. This is no accusation, it is simply a fact. I want you in Trogir to use that money mercilessly and precisely. That is the only real measure of success in the time in which we live,” said the President.

“Croatia will continue to develop, whether it adopts national development strategies within the European Semester or not, sometimes concentrating too much on bureaucratic hurdles imposed on us from all sides, instead of greedily dealing with what we consider important,” concluded President Milanović.

PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Marko Beljan