The embassy issued a press release in the wake of a statement issued by the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration on November 30.
A polemic between the two countries about access to the real estate market began on Tuesday, following news that the Croatian government and Austria prepared an agreement on returning property to Germans (also known as Danubian Germans) who left Croatia after World War Two. The Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that day that Italian citizens were in an unequal position in Croatia and voiced concern about that.
A day later, the Croatian foreign ministry labelled the inequality claims as unfounded.
It underlined in a statement 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 statement also 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 Croatian 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.
In today's press release, the Italian Embassy said the legal grounds under which the condition of reciprocity was considered to have been met were explained to Croatia on a number of occasions, and that they were also the subject of bilateral consultations held in Zagreb on October 10 and 11.
The press release said this was also confirmed by minutes of the consultations signed by representatives of the two sides.
The Italian side is fully ready for an exchange of notes without delay, as said in the minutes, in order to settle the issue for good, the press release said.