It is necessary to understand the government's efforts for "the same principles to be applied to Croatian citizens and other European citizens, but the commitments we undertook should also be respected," Josipovic said on Croatian Radio.
He said that if an error was made in drawing up the law on judicial cooperation in criminal matters with EU countries, it should be corrected, voicing confidence that "this will happen at a certain pace."
The president pushed for aligning Croatian legislation with the EAW and making Croatia's legal system such that there is no trace of doubt as to whether Croatia protects any criminal, notably when it comes to politically motivated crime.
"That's why changing the Constitution perhaps isn't a bad idea," he said, adding that the lifting of the statute of limitations should apply not only to the gravest politically motivated crimes and murders, but also to other serious crimes which resulted in human deaths.
The criteria must be the same for all and no crime should be justified, regardless of the alleged policies the perpetrators served, said Josipovic.
Asked if constitutional amendments, announced by the government to lift the statute of limitations on politically motivated crimes, would solve the problems, the president said the law was not enough, that political will and morals were also necessary.
"We have and have always had regulations which condemn and envisage high penalties for all murders, notably political ones, yet we have seen that someone has slipped through this net, depending on the political will."
Asked if the murders from the early 1990s also qualified as serious murders, the president said they were murders which had a political motive at that time because they were not in the function of the country's defence during the 1991-95 war.
"There were civilians who were killed simply because they thought differently and because they were of different nationality," Josipovic said, adding that those crimes were the same as those committed during socialism.
An anonymous caller objected to this, accusing the president of totalitarian, Bolshevik and communist thinking. The president replied that every human life was equally important.
Asked if Josip Perkovic, a former Yugoslav and later Croatian secret agent, would be extradited to Germany, where he is wanted for the 1983 murder of a Croatian dissident, Josipovic said he could not and would not speak about this, as this was a matter for the courts.
The president also said that if there was a military operation in Syria, Croatia would not take part in it.
"Croatia has neither the capacity nor interest to participate in a military operation, but we condemn the crimes taking place there and understand the need to punish those that use horrible means such as poison gas," he said, hopeful that the situation in Syria will be solved peacefully.