The decoration ceremony was held in the Croatian embassy and the awards were handed to Cviic's widow, Celia Cviic, and to Franolic's widow, Betty Franolic.
At the ceremony, President Josipovic described Cviic and Franolic as important persons in the Croatia and British public life and as proven patriots who had done much for Croatia.
Krsto Cviic was born in Nova Gradiska in 1930. He settled in Britain in 1954 and his career took him to the BBC World Service, to St Antony's College, Oxford, to Chatham House and finally to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. In 1969 he accept the offer of a job at The Economist, where he worked until 1990, specialising in, among other things, ecumenical affairs, and Eastern Europe. In the years 1999-2007, he took on a largely full-time job as political adviser on Balkan affairs to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He died in December 2010.
Branko Franolić was born in 1925 in Rijeka and died in 2011 in London, UK where he had lived for almost four decades, since 1974. He studied French, English and Italian languages at the University of Zagreb. In 1952 he emigrated from ex-Yugoslavia, and since then spent most of his life far from his homeland, in England, France, Canada and elsewhere. He was viewed as a distinguished promoter of Croatian studies.