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Croatia–Mexico relations refer to the bilateral relationship between Croatia and Mexico. Both counties are members of the International Monetary Fund, United Nations, World Bank and the World Trade Organization.
Contents
History
Following Croatia's independence from SFR Yugoslavia in June 1991, Mexico recognized the new independent nation on 22 May 1992. Diplomatic relations among the two countries were officially established on 6 December 1992. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations; relations between both nations have been limited. In March 2002, Croatian President Stjepan Mesić visited Mexico to attend the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico. This was the first and highest level visit paid to Mexico by a Croatian head of state.
In October 2008, Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Patricia Espinosa Cantellano paid an official visit to Croatia, the first visit at ministerial level by a Mexican official to the Croatia since the establishment of diplomatic relations between both nations. Croatia and Mexico signed an agreement on mutual abolition of visas and, in addition, the two countries signed an agreement on cooperation in the fields of education, culture and sport.
Croats in Mexico
There is a small immigrant community of Croats in Mexico mostly in the capital and its surroundings. Mexican cuisine, Mexican music (mariachi) and Mexican soap operas are popular in Croatia. Los Caballeros is the first Croatian band that performs traditional Mexican music. In 2000, it successfully participated in the 7th International Mariachi and Charreria meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Croatian sailor and soldier, Vinko Paletin, joined the expedition that was led by Francisco de Montejo on the Yucatán Peninsula. As a member of the Mexican Dominican Province of St. James Paletin was in Mexico preparing at a monetary of St. Dominic to become a priest. He eventually at the end of summer of 1546 returned to Europe.
18th century Croatian Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Konščak (Mexican: Fernando Consag) has become one of the most famous researchers of Mexican peninsula Baja California. He proved that California was a peninsula. Konščak was a distinguished mathematician, astronomer, naturalist, geologist, builder of roads and embankments and supervisor of all the Jesuit reductions in Mexico. Small Mexican island Roca Consag was named after him.
Croatian Jesuit priest Ivan Ratkaj came to present-day Mexican province of Chihuahua in 1680. He has written three reports about his trip, landscape, as well as about life, nature and customs of indigenous people. These are the oldest descriptions of this region. It also consists of many details. With his third travelogue, Ratkaj enclosed a map of the province marked with latitude and longitude, parts of the world, missionary stations and Spanish forts, habitats of provincial Indian tribes and rivers and mountains. It is also one of the first mapping works by Croatian authors, and the oldest map of that Mexican province. Map was made in 1683 as a drawing on paper. The original is kept in the central Jesuit archives in Rome. Small copy was published by EJ Burrus in La obra de la Provincia cartografico Mexicana de la Compañía de Jesús, 1567-1967, Madrid 1967, P. II. carta Nr. 16.
Notable Croatian Mexicans
Economic cooperation
In 1997, Mexico signed a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union (which includes Croatia). In 2015, trade between Croatia and Mexico totaled $46 million USD. In 2015 Croatia exported to Mexico goods worth $25.4 million and imported from Mexico goods worth $20.6 million. Mexican multinational companies such as Cemex and América Móvil operate in Croatia.