"Croatia and Finland have had good political relations for 25 years, but their cooperation needs to be strengthened on the economic front," were the words of Bozo Petrov, the Croatian Parliament speaker after a meeting with his Finnish counterpart Maria Lohele a few days ago.
The Finnish Parliament speaker Lohele who was on her first visit to Croatia said that the two countries had a lot in common, shared many challenges and possibilities especially in the field of economy. She also emphasized that Croatia as the newest member of the EU was a country of many opportunities and she hoped that her visit would help improve relations between these two countries at the parliamentary level and at the business one.
In mid-December 2012 the Finnish parliament ratified with a vast majority of votes the Croatia's EU accession treaty thus Finland was the 20th country to approve Croatia's accession to the European Union, without waiting for the European Commission's final monitoring report in March 2013.
At the meeting with her Croatian counterpart Maria Lohele also added that Croatia was an increasingly popular tourist destination for Finnish tourists and expressed hope that those trends would continue and that more Croatians would opt for Finland as their tourist destination in the future. Last year 68,000 Finnish tourists visited Croatia.
The Finnish Parliament speaker Maria Lohele