BELGRADE, January 30 – RIA Novosti. President Zoran Milanovic said the European Union, represented by EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell, had made a “circus poodle” from Croatia by acting against Croatia’s interests, and called Foreign Minister Gordan Grlich-Radman a “geisha Lavrov”.

“Let’s not make fools of ourselves. Borrell is interested in making a circus poodle from Croatia, Mogherini and some Croatian media have to some extent preceded him,” the Croatian president told reporters on Monday.

According to him, the country is sinking in the mud and “operates directly against Croatian interests.” Milanovic recalled Borrell’s letter to Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlich-Radman at the end of December, refusing the Croatian army’s participation in the EU Althea peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This is a sensitive issue for Zagreb, as Bosnian Croats are BiH’s third state-forming country.

“What is the Croatian government doing, what is the “geisha Lavrova” doing, the person who received this letter? write … and goodbye,” said Milanovic. On Monday, the head of EU diplomacy described himself as “a rabbit out of someone’s hat”.

Earlier, the Croatian President repeatedly accused the Foreign Minister of acting unprofessional and obeying Prime Minister Andrei Plenkovic. In mid-January, Milanovic said that Grlich-Radman, “whose own father and mother do not understand”, went to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on January 17, 2022, for no reason. According to him, the head of the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs at that time invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Croatia, which the Croatian president “did not allow”.