Croatia criticises EU over Italy dispute

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader has criticised the European Union’s stance over his country’s diplomatic squabble with Italy concerning World War II victims.

Zagreb and Rome exchanged angry notes this week after a speech by Italy’s president Giorgio Napolitano commemorating World War II massacres of Italians by Yugoslav partisans raised the ire of his Croatian counterpart Stipe Mesic.

Napolitano described the killings as “a wave of hate and bloody fury, and a Slavic expansionist design”.

Mesic responded by saying the speech contained “traces of open racism, historical revisionism” and political aggression.

The EU appeared to side with member country Italy after EU Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said the “language used by the Croatian president was inappropriate, or seemed inappropriate.”

She did not comment on Napolitano’s speech.

In a special press conference today, Croatian Premier Sanader accused Ahkrenkilde’s statements of being “profoundly one-sided and unacceptable.”