Zagreb - The Croatian Parliament on Friday unanimously declared 5 June Croatian Flag Day, commemorating the inauguration of Josip Jelačić as Ban of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia on 5 June 1848 - an event directly linked to the origin of the Croatian flag as we know it today.
On that day, the Croatian tricolour - red, white and blue - was officially flown for the first time.
"Everyone was in favour. I can say with great satisfaction that the decision to declare 5 June Croatian Flag Day was passed unanimously," Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković said after 117 MPs voted in favour of the proposal.
The tricolour began to be widely used across the Croatian lands in the spring of 1848 as the national flag. With Jelačić's inauguration as Ban came a change that permanently defined the Croatian national flag, which has since held a special place in the creation and preservation of Croatian national identity. Jelačić's tricolour, a sort of prototype of the Croatian national and state flag, is kept in the collection of the Croatian History Museum but is rarely displayed due to its fragility.
The proposal came from Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) MP Andro Krstulović Opara and was supported by the parliamentary Committee on Education as well as by the government.
Krstulović Opara noted that Croats are among the few European nations to have preserved their original flag, which served as the model for the flag of the Triune Kingdom and later for the flag formally adopted on 21 December 1992, the day before the adoption of the Christmas Constitution. A replica of that flag was brought into the chamber by Jandroković on Thursday, for the second time in two years.
That same tricolour was present in the chamber on the historic day of 30 May 1990 during the inaugural session of the first democratically elected multi-party Croatian Parliament.
Krstulović Opara noted that the flag had once been banned and recalled that the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU) adopted an important declaration on Thursday on the historical Croatian coat of arms, which, he said, resolved all imposed doubts about the first (white) field in the Croatian historical coat of arms.
"That coat of arms was on the official flag from 25 July to 21 December 1990 and stood alongside the replica of the Ban's flag in the chamber from that day until 1995, when the chamber was renovated. Those who renovated it, under pressure from the smear campaign against the Croatian white field, did not return it," he said.
Bridge MP Marin Miletić also expressed his satisfaction that there is "finally a Croatian Flag Day", emphasising that the flag is a symbol of the Croatian state and identity. He also announced that he had submitted to Parliament a declaration on the historical Croatian coat of arms, based on a scientific document from HAZU, to "put an end to all attempts to tarnish the historical Croatian coat of arms with the first white field."
"That is the historical Croatian coat of arms, and we have every right to be proud of it as Croats," he said.
On the proposal of the Committee on Health and Social Policy, which was also backed by the government, Parliament declared this year the Year of Pharmacy in Croatia, with the aim of increasing visibility and public recognition of the pharmacy profession and its contribution to the health and safety of citizens.
Among other items, Parliament adopted the 2024 defence report and the report on post-earthquake reconstruction in Zagreb and the Banovina region, as well as in Karlovac, Zagreb and Krapina-Zagorje counties.
It rejected a motion tabled by the green-left group We Can! that would have required the government to allocate, within 30 days funding for the reconstruction of private and public buildings in the old town centre of Karlovac.