In a speech last week, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano ascribed the responsibility for Italian victims at the end of the Second World War in the former Yugoslavia to "Slavic bloodthirsty hatred" and "aspirations for annexation".
It prompted a response from Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, who said that "it is impossible not to see elements of open racism, historical revisionism and political revenge-seeking" in Napolitano's statement.
Asked to comment on those statements, European Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said that Mesic's response was "inappropriate" but declined to comment on Napolitano's statement, saying the next day that it reflected the position of the European Commission.
The Croatian ministry said in a letter it was unusual for a European Commission spokesperson to be commenting on statements by a head of state, adding that Ahrenkilde Hansen's statement additionally complicated the already sensitive issue.
The ministry said that President Mesic had to respond to the unacceptable statements about some historical aspects of Croatian-Italian relations.