The press release was issued in reply to Tuesday's statement in which the Italian foreign ministry voiced concern about the development of Croatian-Italian relations.
The Italian statement came in the wake of news that the Croatian government had signed an agreement with Austria on the return of property to Germans who fled Croatia after World War Two. The statement read that Italian citizens were in an unequal position and expressed concern about this fact.
The Croatian foreign ministry said the inequality claims were unfounded.
It underlined that in order to ensure Italians' equality with the citizens of other European Union member-states, Croatia had requested an unambiguous and unconditional statement from Italy to the effect that Croatian citizens could already freely acquire real estate in Italy, as foundation of the reciprocity principle, but had not received it yet.
The press release said Croatia was fully aware of its commitments, both under the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) and within accession negotiations with the EU, and that it expected the debate on this issue to continue on the basis of objective facts.
The issue of compensation for nationalised Italian property and that left behind by Italians who left Croatia at the end of WW2 is regulated by the Osimo and Rome agreements, the press release said. The ministry reiterated Croatia's readiness to pay part of the debt under those agreements and regretted that Italy had still not accepted this method of such payment.
The press release went on to say that the issue of access to the real estate market was separate from the issue of compensation and denationalisation, and that therefore the Italian foreign ministry had no reason to refer to the Croatia-Austria agreement.
The Croatian foreign ministry recalled that the agreement applicable in Croatia's relations with Italy and all other EU member-states was the SAA, and that at this moment it bound Croatia to apply its legislation regulating access to the real estate market.
The Croatian ministry also underlined that Croatia and Italy were two friendly countries whose relations were constantly ascending and which enjoyed constant dialogue, as well as the fact that Croatia highly appreciated Italy's support on its road to EU membership and the further mutually beneficial cooperation in this process.
In yesterday's statement, the Italian foreign ministry said it was noticing with growing concern that an increasing number of negative signals coming from Croatia.
The statement said, among other things, that such signals were contrary to the importance of bilateral relations in economic, commercial and financial partnership, as well as to the unconditional and friendly support from the Italian government for Croatia's EU integration process, which the ministry said culminated in the launching of accession negotiations on October 3.