Guest lecture

NATO's Assistant Secretary General, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, held a guest lecture at VERN'

What is NATO, and what are the main responibilities of the organization? Assistant Secretary General at NATO, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, offered answers to these and many other questions, during a guest lecture held VERN’s journalism students.

It was a tremendous honor to become assistant Secretary General, not only for Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović personally, but also for the country of Croatia. Only two years after becoming a member  Croatia   had its first representative in Ms. Grabar-Kitarović.  Ms. Grabar-Kitarović is the first and only woman to serve this assistant function.

In the discussion with students, Ms. Grabar-Kitarović reported on the current situation in Afganistan; she described the recent happenings in Libia and explained NATO’s efforts in the Kosovo issue. She clarified that Croatia could have finished the EU negotiations in 2007, but there was a lack of political courage at that time, and we, as the state, were insufficiently up-to-date in solving national issues. The fact that we had the most complex and longest negotiations of all other member state will ease negotiations for any future acceding country.

She also elaborated on other NATO tasks, such as prevention of terorism, environmental pollution, piracy and cyber attacks. This latter issue is a major challenge for the future, and in Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović’s words, NATO alone prevents approximately 10 thousand cyber attacks a month.

(Andrea Brkić)