Demeshchuk A. Foreign policy of the Republic of Croatia (1991-1999).

The disintegration of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, formation of new states in its place and the transformation processes in them have an extremely important place in the history of Europe at the end of the XX century. In this context, one of the most significant countries is the Republic of Croatia, which together with the Republic of Slovenia was the first to leave Yugoslavia and played a highly important role in the course of the Yugoslav crisis. In the 1990s, Croatia went through a difficult war of war for the restoration of territorial integrity (the Croatian-Serbian conflict), post-communist transformation and state formation. In the first decade of Croatian independence, its government, led by the party HDZ and president F. Tudjman, was able to address the country's top foreign policy goals, provide it with a meaningful place in the international community, and provide a solid ground for Croatia’s further Euro-Atlantic integration in the XXI century. Although Croatia was able to successfully meet its primary goals (mostly security-minded), Croatian foreign policy in 1991-1999 faced considerable challenges and was sometimes contradictory, resulting in deterioration of its relations with the West and suspension of Croatia’s Euro-Atlantic integration. Croatia and Slovenia are now the only post-Yugoslav republics that are member of the EU and NATO. The Croatian foreign policy experience of the 1990s provides a considerable interest for modern Ukraine, its authorities and society, because Croatia at that time faced similar challenges - undeclared war, separatism, loss of part of its state territory - and later restored its territorial integrity in two ways – using the military power and by the peaceful reintegration with an engagement of the United Nations and the international community. Acoording to this, examining how Croatia was interacting with the international community and its individual representatives, as well as international organizations, to overcome the challenges it faced, would be useful for present-day Ukraine.