Javno.com: KALASHNIKOVS TO AFGHANISTAN: Croatia Selling 19,000 AK-47 Rifles to USA
American reasons for this weapons deal are lower price due to friendly relations and the current state of equipment of Afghan troops. Croatia will send to the ISAF Mission in Afghanistan armoured vehicles purchased from the Finnish company Patria to better protect Croatian soldiers there, but this should come about only in a year or two.
Croatia will send to the ISAF Mission in Afghanistan armoured vehicles purchased from the Finnish company Patria to better protect Croatian soldiers there, but this should come about only in a year or two.
Croatia can probably really use the €2bn from this sale to defend the exchange rate of the kuna and help with the current budget tightness. Its economy has structural problems that the crisis is not making any better.
Now, Sanader may be angling for the vote of Bosnian Croats in Croatia. I originally found the following story a bit criptic.
BalkanInsight.com: Leading Bosnian Croat Parties Eye Reunification (02 April 2009)
[Note: this does not mean reunification of Croatia and the Bosnian Croats, but it does sound weird, doesn't it? It does mean the reunification of two largest Bosnian Croat parties which split off from the sister party to Sanader's (and Tudjman's) HDZ. Sanader is brokering the negotiations.]
The strongest Bosnian Croat parties, the Croat Democratic Union, HDZ, and the renegade HDZ1990, inch towards reunification, with HDZ 1990leadership expected to start discussing this issue on Thursday. ... [HDZ1990 president] Ljubic made his comments after the process for reunification of the two Bosnian HDZ parties was officially initiated and strongly supported by the Croatian Premier Ivo Sanader, two days ago. Eventual reunification of HDZ and HDZ1990 would reinforce Bosnian Croat negotiating positions. This process, and Sanader's role in it, also shows a renewed strengthening of Croatian involvement in the Bosnian Croat political scene.
...
[HDZ1990 president] Ljubic made his comments after the process for reunification of the two Bosnian HDZ parties was officially initiated and strongly supported by the Croatian Premier Ivo Sanader, two days ago.
Eventual reunification of HDZ and HDZ1990 would reinforce Bosnian Croat negotiating positions. This process, and Sanader's role in it, also shows a renewed strengthening of Croatian involvement in the Bosnian Croat political scene.
DoDo has written about similar irresponsible political use of the Hungarian minority in Romania by the Hungarian right-wing party Fidesz. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
