Croatia’s foreign minister caused criticism with his attempt to greet his German counterpart Baerbock with a kiss. Now Radman apologized for the scene: “Maybe it was an uncomfortable moment.”
After a kiss for Annalena Baerbock that was deemed inappropriate by the audience, Croatia’s Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman apologized. He was not immediately aware that he might have embarrassed his German counterpart with the friendly gesture at a European Congress at the Foreign Office in Berlin on Thursday.
“Maybe it was an unpleasant moment,” Radman said, according to Croatian media on Saturday. “If anyone saw anything bad in that, then I apologize to whoever took it that way.” Because of the delay in his plane, he only saw Baerbock when he took a photo with all his EU colleagues, Radman continued.
Radman said he didn’t know what the problem was. He was not aware of it. “We always greet each other warmly. It’s a warm, human interaction between colleagues.”
“We didn’t talk about kissing today”
Video footage of the incident showed Radman trying to kiss Baerbock while taking the group photo called “family photo” and how she quickly turned away to the side. According to the “Bild” newspaper, those around Baerbock said it was a clumsy attempt to quickly greet each other.
Baerbock herself did not want to comment on the events at a press conference with her colleague Jeyhun Bayramov in the Azerbaijani capital Baku on Saturday evening. When asked a question by a reporter, she simply said: “We didn’t talk about kissing today.”
Criticism on social networks
Among other things, the Croat is accused on social networks of publicly embarrassing a German government politician and embarrassing his country. “Kissing women forcibly is also called violence, right?” wrote Croatia’s former Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor on the platform X (formerly Twitter).