page_title: Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović
section_title: Presidency (2015–2020)
hierarchical_section_title: Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović / Presidency (2015–2020)
caption_attribution_description: Español: Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović y Emmanuel Macron se preparan para otorgar el primer y segundo puesto en la final de la Copa de Rusia de Fútbol 2018 English: Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović and Emmanuel Macron prepare to award the first and second places in the final of the 2018 Russian Football Cup Français&#160;: Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović et Emmanuel Macron se préparent à décerner les première et deuxième places en finale de la Coupe de Russie de football 2018 Hrvatski: Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović i Emmanuel Macron pripremaju se na prvo i drugo mjesto u finalu 2018. ruskog nogometnog prvenstva Русский: Колинда Грабар-Китарович и Эммануэль Макрон готовятся награждать первое и второе места в финале Кубка России по футболу 2018 года
context_page_description: Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović is a Croatian politician and diplomat and a Member of the International Olympic Committee who served as President of Croatia from 2015 to 2020. She was the first woman to be elected to the office since the first multi-party elections in 1990 and independence in 1991. At 46 years of age, she also became the youngest person to assume the presidency.
  Before her election as president of Croatia, Grabar-Kitarović held a number of governmental and diplomatic positions. She was minister of European Affairs from 2003 to 2005, the first female minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration from 2005 to 2008 in both the first and second cabinets of Ivo Sanader, Croatian ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011 and assistant secretary general for public diplomacy at NATO under Secretaries General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jens Stoltenberg from 2011 to 2014.
  She is a recipient of the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Award and a number of national and international awards, decorations, honorary doctorates and honorary citizenships.
context_section_description: Less than nine months into Grabar-Kitarović's term the European migrant crisis began to escalate with large numbers of migrants entering Greece and Macedonia and crossing from Serbia into Hungary, with the latter beginning the construction of a fence on its southern border as a result. In September 2015, after Hungary constructed a fence and closed its border with Serbia, the flow of migrants was redirected towards Croatia, causing over 21,000 migrants to enter the country by 19 September, with the number rising to 39,000 immigrants, while 32,000 migrants exited Croatia, leaving through Slovenia and Hungary. She appointed Andrija Hebrang her commissioner for the refugee crisis.
  With the parliament expected to dissolve by 25 September, Grabar-Kitarović called parliamentary elections for 8 November 2015. They proved inconclusive and negotiations on forming a government lasted for 76 days. Grabar-Kitarović had previously announced on 22 December 2015, if there were no agreement on a possible Prime Minister-designate in the next 24 hours, she would call for an early election and name a non-partisan transitional government (which would have reportedly been headed by Damir Vanđelić), thereby putting intense pressure on the political parties involved in the negotiations regarding the formation of the new government, to find a solution. The crisis finally ended on 23 December 2015 when Grabar-Kitarović gave the 30-day mandate to form a government to the non-partisan Croatian-Canadian businessman Tihomir Orešković, who had been selected by HDZ and MOST only hours before the expiration of the President's delegated time frame for the naming of a Prime-Minister-designate.
  On 24 August 2015, Grabar-Kitarović was, as Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief, presented with a petition for the introduction of a Croatian fascist Ustaše movement salute Za dom spremni to the official use in the Croatian Armed Forces. She immediately rejected petition calling it "frivolous, unacceptable and provocative". She called the salute a "Croatian historical greeting" that was "compromised and unacceptable". Following a backlash from historians that the salute was not historical, Grabar-Kitarović admitted that she was wrong in that part of the statement.
  On 29 September 2015, at the initiative of Grabar-Kitarović the Atlantic Council co-hosted an informal high-level Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Leaders' Meeting in New York City which would later grow to Three Seas Initiative. The Initiative was officially formed in 2016 and held its first summit in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on 25–26 August 2016.
  On 11 April 2016, after meeting with Nicolas Dean, the special envoy for Holocaust of the United States Department of State, Grabar-Kitarović stated that the "Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was least independent and was least protecting the interests of the Croatian people". Adding that the "Ustaše regime was criminal regime", that "anti-fascism is in the foundation of the Croatian Constitution" and that the "modern Croatian state has grown on the foundations of the Croatian War of Independence." In May 2016, Grabar-Kitarović visited Tehran on the invitation of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani called on Croatia to be the gateway to Iran's ties with Europe. The two presidents reaffirmed the traditionally good relations between their countries and signed an agreement on economic cooperation.
  In October 2016, Grabar-Kitarović made an official visit to Baku, Azerbaijan where she expressed her support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, stating that the solution to this conflict "must be peaceful and political".
  Grabar-Kitarović expressed her condolences to Slobodan Praljak's family after he committed suicide in The Hague where he was facing trial, calling him "a man who preferred to give his life, rather than to live, having been convicted of crimes he firmly believed he had not committed", adding that "his act struck deeply at the heart of the Croatian people and left the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugosla
caption: President Grabar-Kitarović and French president Emmanuel Macron after the 2018 World Cup final between the two countries.
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