"Croatia's future lies in Europe, but we must also establish good trading relations with neighbours," Mesic said in a Croatian Radio broadcast on Monday afternoon.
Recalling that Croatia registered trade surpluses only with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro and Macedonia, he said that Croatia's market was small and that the country must find new markets and return to those where Croatian products used to be sold.
Commenting on increasing Euro-scepticism in the country, particularly in the media, Mesic said that "right-wingers are intimidating people with Europe".
It is not accidental that the interview of former HRT editor Tomislav Marcinko has appeared now, Mesic said in this context referring to the controversial interview with the Vecernji List daily, in which Marcinko claimed that he had a list of former agents of ex-Yugoslavia's intelligence services who are still employed with the Croatian national broadcasting company (HRT).
Mesic believes that a former member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Ivic Pasalic, who used to be portrayed as the party's hawk and who in the meantime established a right-wing party, was behind the interview.
Asked to comment on protests by Muslims worldwide angered by insulting cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, Mesic ruled out the possibility of protests spilling over to Croatia's neighbour, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) make up a majority of the population.