is : It is well organized,clean, smoothly run, safe to live and visit, and most importantly, this is the city that their inhabitants love and are proud of.  It has a cosiness  of a smaller town, although it is not.  Zagreb is close to 800 000, and with metropolitain area 1 400 000 people who gravitate toward Zagreb for work, education or fun. One quarter of Croatia’s population lives in Zagreb, it contributes more than a half to the Croatian overall economy output and its GDP is above the European average. We obviously have challenges too, but if you visit Zagreb, you can very well see that they are duly addressed.

 The quality of life in Zagreb is very good. Zagrebians mostly take it for granted: it goes from very good general health care and education, to reliable public transport or outdoor activites, to the fact that the quality of food in our open markets is truly superior, to the cafe culture in the streets of Zagreb or affordable culture venues.

What I am most proud of is that there are no big poverty issues in Zagreb. There are no slums, no social disasters, wherever you go. No one has ever died of poverty or neglect in the streets of Zagreb.  

However, although it is taken for granted, all these good things do not happen by itself. There is a systemic effort and work behind it and the achievements are the result of a careful approach and mindful policy. The Mayor Milan Bandić’s is in his fifth term and if you go back through his mandates you will see that a plan emerges on how to transform that lovely but neglected place that Zagreb used to be in socialism, into a vibrant modern city, which preserved its charact

bd : how did you cope with the economical crisis ?

Is : Zagreb is now pulling all its forces to get the country out of the economic crisis, both by its own effort, and with the help of European funds, having a Europe 2020 strategy in mind. When Croatia will succeed in this, the City of Zagreb will stand behind it.    

Is : It goes without saying. We have excellent and close relationship with all the cities in our neighbourd, with Ljubljana, Budapest, Vienna, which are in the EU for much longer. This is reflected in programmes, visits, exchange of good practice. We are also close and eager to co-operate with the capitals and other cities we used to be in the same state, notably with the Sarajevo, Belgrade, Podgorica or Skopje. It is true that there was a war, but it has ended more than 20 years ago. The word now is co-operation. Interestingly enough, Zagreb as a city never suffered from animosities in the region, and even at its most challenging times, it has remained the city that is mostly highly regarded in the region. Everyone from the region loves to come to Zagreb and feel good there. This reputation is a big capital that our Mayor is well aware of and cherishes it. We are giving hand and are ready to help the other Western Balkan’s capitals in all the programmes, capacity building,and generally in being the channel, the bridge between them and the EU.