The NGOs said that they would cooperate with other associations from the European Union and Western Balkans in monitoring activities during Croatia's EU presidency and that they would advocate topics that were important for EU citizens.
The convention was organised by some 15 NGOs from all over Croatia, gathered around the initiative "Forum 2020", which is coordinated by the Croatian Platform for International Citizen Solidarity (CROSOL), and its goal is to define and send proposals to EU institutions on how to more strongly integrate peace building in their policies.
"As the youngest European Union member, Croatia joined the bloc with the direct experience of war. As the country chairing the Council of the EU in 2020 Croatia should reopen the debate on whether we have forgotten that one of the EU's roles is to be a guarantee of peace. At a time when the EU is allocating more funds for defence policies and when it considers the arrival of people who are fleeing war, poverty and the consequences of climate change as an attack on itself, we should speak up about the need for greater efforts in peace building within and beyond our borders," the NGOs told a press conference.
Kristijan Kovacic of the CROSOL platform said that he was pleased civil society organisations were marking Croatia's presidency of the Council of the EU in Vukovar because that was the best place to talk about peace building.
"Our message is that as a member of the EU, Croatia, which is the only one to have recently experienced war conflicts, can make a significant contribution to peace building policies as part of the EU's foreign policy," Kovacic said, adding that peace building was a permanent process.
The director of the "Friedrich Ebert Hrvatska" foundation, Turkan Karakurt said that she was pleased that Croatia was chairing the Council of the EU, particularly since Germany would take over the presidency after Croatia.
This is an opportunity for Germany and for Croatia to work together on the project of Europe as a place of peace, Karakurt said and added that she was pleased that the voice of civil society was being heard in Vukovar.
Asked by reporters about the growth of radicalism over the past few years in Europe, including Croatia, Karakurt said that this was a complex problem and the topic of violence and remembrance of war and the horrors of war events could no longer reach people, which was why it was necessary to work more on the project of Europe as a place of peace.