Croatia, known mostly by foreigners for its medieval Adriatic ports of Dubrovnik and Split, is easily Europe’s most visited country relative to its population. This year, the former Yugoslav republic received 4.3 tourists per inhabitant, while Dubrovnik itself recorded a staggering 27.4 visitors per resident—outranking Rhodes, Venice, Florence, Paris and Barcelona.

“Once celebrated for its architectural splendor and historical allure, the city is now synonymous with overtourism,” reports the online magazine Holidu, adding that Dubrovnik has sadly been transformed “from a tranquil, coastal retreat into a bustling human anthill.”

Yet outside of its immense tourism appeal, the Republic of Croatia still isn’t a household name in the United States.

Zagreb’s ambassador in Washington, Pjer Šimunović, wants to change that. He’d like his West Virginia-sized country to be known not only for its history and architecture, but also for being the economic growth engine of the Balkans—and for helping defend Ukraine against unprovoked Russian aggression.

“When we see world events throughout the prism of our experiences related to the collapse of former Yugoslavia and the fall of communism, we instinctively sympathize with those who have been exposed to an armed attack with the aim of total subjugation,” he said. “This is exactly happened to us in the early 1990s, when the old constituent republics of Yugoslavia declared independence in a peaceful, democratic manner.”

Šimunović spoke to The Washington Diplomat from his stately embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. The mansion, purchased from the Austrians in 1993 following Croatia’s independence, is graced out front by a large sculpture of St. Jerome by Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović.

Born in Split when it was still part of Yugoslavia, the future ambassador earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy, comparative literature and Italian language studies in 1988 from the University of Zagreb, as well as a master’s degree from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.

During his earlier career in journalism before becoming a diplomat, Šimunović worked with the BBC World Service in London, the Paris-based magazine Europ and the Zagreb daily Večernji list, covering the collapse of communism, and crisis and war in the former Yugoslavia, as well as European and transatlantic affairs.

“Working the city beat in Zagreb, that time was among the happiest days of my life,” the 63-year-old ambassador recalled fondly. “Back when I started my career as a journalist, our newspaper was by far the largest in former Yugoslavia. I ended up joining the foreign desk, and even before the revolution started in earnest, I was able to cover these events first-hand.”

Ambassador; Ukraine aid is crucial to Europe’s security

Those events included the rise of the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, in the 1980s.

“Solidarity was an early sign of a crack in the bloc, which started when the communists in Poland realized that the end was near, and they gave up attempting to use force. It was almost self-explanatory that the country would abandon communism,” he said. “Later on, after we gained independence and I joined the Foreign Ministry, we needed to populate the government with people who knew something about this.”

In time, Šimunović became director at the National Security Council as well as Croatian ambassador to Israel, defense state secretary in charge of defense policy, national coordinator for NATO, and eventually assistant foreign minister. Along the way, he was also political counselor at the Croatian Embassy in Paris, and deputy director of analysis at Croatia’s Foreign Ministry.

A regular speaker on security issues, Šimunović has written many articles dealing with the arms trade and defense industry, post-communist national security, NATO enlargement, international peacekeeping and counterterrorism.

“From the very beginning, we have been supplying Ukraine with military aid,” he said—mostly small arms, weapons, guns and ammunition. Among other things, Croatia has sent Ukraine 14 MI-8 helicopters as well as transport aircraft, howitzers and protective gear. All told, this amounts to around €200 million in military assistance to Kyiv, according to sources in Zagreb.

Even so, Croatia’s total defense expenditures come to 1.8% of GDP, still shy of the 2% benchmark NATO members have set for themselves. The country should strive to boost that, said Ambassador Jonathan Moore, former head of the OSCE mission to Bosnia & Herzegovina.

“With regard to financial contributions as a NATO ally, increasing Croatia’s defense spending would make a positive impression on both Republicans and Democrats,” said Moore, who from 2012 to 2014 directed the State Department’s Office for Croatia and the Western Balkans.

Yet the issue is a deeply divisive one in Croatia. On Oct. 9, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Dubrovnik to ask Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and a dozen other southeastern European leaders for more aid.

But Croatian President Zoran Milanović refused to attend the event.

“As long as I’m the president of Croatia, I will not sign for Croatian soldiers to be present in Ukraine,” Milanović told reporters, asserting that “the NATO mission to train soldiers in Ukraine is nonsense.”

Moore, who came to know Bosnia and Croatia quite well during his 33-year diplomatic career, responded in a text to the Diplomat that “despite rivalries between the prime minister and president—which of course exist in other countries as well— Croatia can play a positive role in the immediate region with regard to EU enlargement as well as within NATO.”

Croatia expected to finish 2024 with 3.5% growth

Besides direct military assistance to Ukraine, said Šimunović, “we are engaged in mine-clearing and explosive ordnance disposal efforts, and very involved in prosecuting war crimes—something we have experience in, based on our own war.” He added that Croatia has accepted more than 20,000 refugees from Ukraine—nearly all of them women and children.

This has partially offset a population drop sparked by Croatia’s accession to the EU in 2004, when a rash of young Croatians suddenly began leaving for Germany, Ireland and elsewhere in search of better-paying jobs. Since hitting a high of 4.78 million people in 1991, Croatia’s population has shrunk by over 900,000, falling to 3.87 million as of the 2011 census.

While the government hasn’t yet figured out how to fix that downward spiral, Šimunović put a positive spin on recent developments.

“We got out of that economic crisis with flying colors, and now we’re one of the best-performing countries in Europe, with projected growth of 3.5% this year,” he said, noting that tourism now amounts to 20% of total GDP. Last year, a decade after joining the EU, Croatia adopted the euro as its sole currency, further integrating its economy with that of the other 26 EU member states.

“We received the highest-ever credit rating by the leading rating agencies, and have such good parameters that we’ve had to import foreign laborers,” he said. “We now see a trend of Croatian-Americans—young digital nomads—coming back to live there. IT is booming, and so are foreign investments.”

Croatia, which lost about 15,000 people and saw another 300,000 internally displaced in its war of independence against the Yugoslav army controlled by Serbia, is today a strong ally of Kosovo—a predominantly Muslim, Albanian-speaking breakaway republic of Serbia. Croatia is among 104 countries that have recognized Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.

“It was a just thing to do—to recognize the independence of Kosovo and what was done to them by the Milosevic regime,” Šimunović said. “Independence was the only solution to protect the rights of all minorities living in Kosovo, including Serbs.”

But the reality, he said, is that Kosovo’s Serb minority is getting assistance from Belgrade to undermining the young country’s stability.

“We need to keep a close eye on what’s happening in Kosovo, and keep the situation from exploding. Having Kosovar Albanians and the Serb minority reach a mutually acceptable agreement is easier said than done—it’s one of the most difficult issues in Europe these days.”

Šimunović, recalling the “troubles” of Northern Ireland he covered as a young journalist, said that conflict once seemed “totally intractable,” but that thanks to the 1998 Good Friday agreement negotiated by the United States, it has largely been resolved.

“Bosnia is also a tricky issue,” he said. “But again, using the example of Northern Ireland, nothing is forever.”

The Israel-Gaza War: Croatia takes a firm stand

Turning to yet another ethnic conflict, the Diplomat asked Šimunović—who served as Zagreb’s top envoy in Tel Aviv from 2011 to 2015—about Croatia’s strong pro-Israel stance.

“It’s a reasonable attitude,” he said. “We have a civilizational proximity to the Jewish nation, and Croatian Jews were an integral part of Croatia for centuries. They were politicians, artists and industrialists, and contributed to the defense of Croatia during the Ottoman Empire.”

On Oct. 29, 2023—just three weeks after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and murdered over 1,200 Jews and other Israelis—the UN General Assembly voted 120-14, with 45 abstentions, to demand a humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Croatia was among only four EU states—along with Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic—to oppose the resolution.

By contrast, neighboring Slovenia not only supported that resolution, but in early June became the latest European country (following Spain, Ireland and Norway) to recognize Palestine as an independent state.

Asked to explain, Šimunović suggested that his country’s solidarity with Israel is typical of center-right governments, while leftist, progressive governments such as the one currently ruling Slovenia are more inclined to sympathize with the Palestinians.

“One country in the former Yugoslavia is doing this, and another is doing that. It may sound a bit farfetched, but maybe it has to do with politics,” he said. The ambassador insisted that this policy has nothing whatsoever to do with Croatian guilt over the Holocaust, during which 30,000 out of the country’s 37,000 Jews were savagely murdered by Ustaša fascists—many of them at Jasenovac and other Ustaša-run concentration camps that were deemed too brutal even by Nazi standards.

“Either way, peace cannot be forced by decree but has to come from within. We support the two-state solution, but only negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians can achieve this,” he said. “We see this as the best possible way of bringing a just and durable peace to the Middle East.”