The European Union consists of national states and the EU cannot be a federation or a supra-state, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic told the press in Rome on Wednesday.

“There is no European federation or supra-state. It is a fantasy nurtured by some. Europe is founded on national states, big and small. I agree with the Hungarians and the Poles and some others, but I do not agree with them in everything,” Milanovic said after attending the 16th meeting of the Arraiolos Group in the Italian capital city.

The Arraiolos Group is an informal group of presidents of parliamentary and semi-presidential European Union member states, who convene roughly once a year. The group, named after the Portuguese city where it held its first meeting in 2003, brings together heads of state of Croatia, Austria, Greece, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Germany and Italy.

Milanovic told the press that during the meeting he had said that “EU bureaucrats in Brussels and all those agencies should be more flexible when they label different states.”

He also advocated embracing diversities inside the EU.

“I have told them that my values are not necessarily the values shared by all Europe and that it is not sound that one sort, in this case exactly the far liberal and left, should be dominant. That is mine, but we are not all the same,” Milanovic added.

“Things can change tomorrow. In Germany, they will not probably, and in France, they can. We should be aware of that, that we are not the same, but there are some things that connect us and therefore we can be together,” said Milanovic.