All 11 candidates running in Croatia's December 22 presidential election, including incumbent Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, appeared on Tuesday in a two-hour debate on Tuesday evening, organised and televised live by state television HRT.

Grabar-Kitarovic said that during the five years of her first term she had been “the voice of citizens” and that she delivered on the promises she had made to voters. In this context, she underscored that she managed to disentangle the country from “the Region” and imposed the issue of demography as one of the top priorities.

Zoran Milanovic, a former Social Democrat (SDP) prime minister who is supported by several left Opposition parties, said that he would reinstate the dignity of the presidency.

Independent candidate Miroslav Skoro, who is supported by the Bridge party and is perceived as the favourite candidate of some anti-establishment right-wing movements, said that he was offering radical changes and that he would seek the enlargement of the powers of the head of state.

Dario Jurican, who goes by the name of Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic and who is giving performances in the campaign, said in his ironical remark that if elected, he would introduce the eighth (grammatical) case in the Croatian language which has seven grammatical cases ( nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative).

The issue of missing people and Serbia's EU membership bid

As for the issue of people who have not been accounted for since the 1991-1995 Homeland War, Grabar-Kitarovic reiterated that she would insist on the search for the missing and concerning Serbia's aspirations to come closer to the European Union, she said that Serbia should meet all the membership requirements and also must come to terms with its past for its own sake.

Milanovic said he was not for the blockade of Serbia's journey towards the EU, however, he called for making a distinction between the Serbian people and “Belgrade's boors” and Aleksandar Vucic on the other side.

Mislav Kolakusic, an independent candidate supported by anti-establishment movements, said that Serbia's journey towards the EU did not depend on Croatia, however, Zagreb could have a say in the process.

Anto Djapic of the right-wing DESNO party said that Serbia would never give full information about the missing people.

NATO and migrants

Considering the topic of migrations, Grabar-Kitarovic called for making a distinction between asylum-seekers and irregular migrants and praised the police for doing a great job while protecting the Croatian border.

Skoro said that the border “is a sacred thing”, and Milanovic praised his cabinet for how it had tackled the flows of migrants in 2015.

Concerning NATO, Kolakusic said that the alliance was dead and proposed establishing an EU army involving service-people from all the member-states.

Katarina Peovic, supported by a few non-parliamentary left-wing parties, said that by its admission to NATO, Croatia actually became a target for terrorist attacks.

Independent candidate Ivan Pernar, a former official of the anti-establishment Human Shield party, described NATO as a criminal organisation.

During the debate, Milanovic criticised Grabar-Kitarovic's Three Seas Initiative, adding that in this way she pushed Croatia in the company with “most regressive countries”.

Now I know that the president has led Croatia in Central Europe. Three Seas ends at the Black Sea, so in the Balkans and this is not even Central Europe, he said.

The initiative that was launched in 2015 by Croatia's President Grabar-Kitarovic and her Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda. The initiative comprises a dozen European states located between the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas: Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Its objective is to bolster regional dialogue and connect the countries between the north and the south.