At the reception, Austrian Ambassador Jan Kickert pointed out a long joint history of the Austrian and Croatian peoples who he said were connected with special friendship and partnership.
French Ambassador Jerome Pasquier congratulated Croatia on the recent admission to NATO and said that Paris would continue supporting Zagreb on its road towards the European Union.
Montenegrin Ambassador Goran Rakocevic said that Croatia had shown the strength of prudence and the greatness of forgiveness and Montenegro had shown courage to face painful and inglorious points in its recent past. Alluding to the Serbian-Montenegrin aggression against Croatia in the early 1990s, he said that Croatia and Montenegro were not hostages of that part of the history but opted for agreement and friendship,