Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (2017)

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (* April 29, 1968 as Kolinda Grabar in Rijeka , Socialist Republic of Croatia , SFR Yugoslavia ) is a Croatian politician and diplomat , who was Croatian President from February 15, 2015 to February 18, 2020 .

She was a member of the Hrvatska demokratska zajednica (HDZ) until she was elected President . Croatian presidents have to give up their party membership.

Childhood, youth and education

origin

Kolinda was born the first of two children. Her family lived in the village of Lubarska near Rijeka. Her father Branko had a butcher shop, in which her brother Branko, who was five years her junior, also worked. She commuted to school in Rijeka every day. As a teenager she wanted to be a stewardess or a translator . After finishing third grade at high school in Rijeka, she went to the United States on an exchange and then stayed with a family in Los Alamos, New Mexico for a year .

The maternal grandfather was a member of the Croatian Peasant Party . At the time of World War II , he joined the anti-fascist movement because of the crimes of Italian fascists in his home region . The granddaughter later said that her grandfather went to the partisans to avoid being captured and shot by the Italians. In the spring of 1945 he was seriously injured in a battle with Germans over Rijeka. He died at the age of 60 as a result of the wounds. Her grandmother saved a pastor from Grobnik from being shot. The devout grandparents became opponents of communism after the war.

education

The butcher's daughter came to the United States as an exchange student when she was 17 , where she graduated from high school in Los Alamos (New Mexico) after a year . She studied English and Spanish at the University of Zagreb with a degree (1993). In 1995/96 followed a postgraduate course in German and additional diplomatic training at the Diplomatic Academy Vienna . She spent study visits to international institutions, including Geneva , Strasbourg and Brussels . In 2000, she obtained a Masters degree in Political Science from the University of Zagreb in International Relations . Grabar-Kitarović then came to George Washington University with the Fulbright program and received other scholarships, including a. for Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University .

Political career

In 1992, Grabar-Kitarović worked in the newly formed Ministry of Science and Technology as a consultant in the international cooperation department . From 1993 she belonged to the HDZ. In the same year she moved to the State Department, where she headed the North American Relations Department for two years from 1995. She then moved as a diplomatic adviser and later Counselor at the Croatian Embassy in Canada to Ottawa .

In the parliamentary elections in Croatia in 2003 , she received a mandate in the Sabor ; In the government of Ivo Sanader formed in December 2003 , she then became Minister for European Integration. After the resignation of Foreign Minister Miomir Žužul , she succeeded him and the Ministry for European Integration was integrated into the Foreign Ministry. In January 2008, Gordan Jandroković was her successor. She then succeeded Neven Jurica as Croatian Ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011 and from 2011 to 2014 Deputy Secretary General of NATO for Public Diplomacy .

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said at the end of June 2017 that the Croatians in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as one of the three constitutive peoples, threatened to degenerate into a minority. Therefore changes to the electoral law of Bosnia-Herzegovina are essential. She will always stand up for equality for Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina. That is why one has to approach the solution of political problems with the greatest seriousness.

Grabar-Kitarovic was admitted to the IOC on July 17, 2020 by resolution of the IOC session.

Presidency

In the first round of the 2014/15 presidential election , Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović was just behind incumbent Ivo Josipović (38.5%) with 37.2% , but clearly ahead of third-placed Ivan Vilibor Sinčić (16.4%). In the second ballot on January 11, 2015, she was elected head of state with 50.7% of the votes and sworn in on February 15, 2015. When she took office, she resigned from the Trilateral Commission .

In the 2019/20 presidential election, she was defeated in the decisive second ballot ( runoff ) on January 5, 2020, to SDP candidate Zoran Milanović with 47.33 to 52.67 percent of the vote.

Private

In 1996 she married Jakov Kitarović, whom she met while studying together in Zagreb and who has been suspending his professorship at the Faculty of Maritime Studies at the University of Rijeka since 2008 in favor of his wife's career. The couple has a daughter (* 2001) and a son (* 2003).

Web links

Commons : Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Adelheid Wölfl: Euro-Atlanticist Grabar-Kitarovic at the helm of Croatia. In: Der Standard Online , January 12, 2015.
• Biographical information on dnevnik.hr, December 18, 2014 (Croatian).
• Biographical information on the website of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (Croatian).
• Biographical information on the homepage of NATO (English).

Remarks

1. ↑ In Croatian, the double name is often written without a hyphen, i.e. Kolinda Grabar Kitarović .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Kolinda Grabar Kitarović . ( vecernji.hr [accessed October 15, 2017]).
2. ↑ Tko je nova hrvatska predsjednica? Pročitajte biografiju Kolinde Grabar Kitarović! | Dnevno.hr. Retrieved October 15, 2017 (hr-HR). 
3. ↑ resume Kolindas.
4. ↑ Press release from the university
5. ↑ Who is Who at NATO.
6. ↑ Kolinda Grabar Kitarović - nova nada Hrvatske , Narodni List (Zadar) online, June 22, 2014
7. ↑ www.nato.int Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy. In: Nato.int.
8. ↑ KOSMO editors: "Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina are in danger of becoming a minority" - KOSMO . In: KOSMO . June 27, 2017 ( kosmo.at [accessed October 15, 2017]).
9. ↑ World President of Athletics Coe accepted into IOC. July 17, 2020, accessed July 18, 2020 . 
10. ↑ Result of the 1st ballot (Croatian); see also presidential election in Croatia: head of state misses absolute majority. In: Spiegel Online , December 28, 2014.
11. ↑ Result of the 2nd ballot ( memento of the original from October 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Croatian); Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic's victory is official. In: St. Galler Tagblatt Online , January 12, 2015; Inauguracija prve predsjednice , jutarnji.hr, January 27, 2015 (Croatian) 
12. ↑ Membership in the Trilateral Commission is not possible for active holders of high state offices, see Rozita Vuković, Kolinda Grabar Kitarović izlazi iz Trilateralne komisije , jutarnik.hr, February 10, 2015
13. ↑ Suprug Kolinde Grabar Kitarović konačno izašao iz sjene. In: tportal.hr , August 18, 2014 (Croatian); Moj suprug nije papučar nego moderan muškarac. In: gloria.hr , December 24, 2014 (Croatian).