Zoran Milanović

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Zoran Milanović

Milanović in February 2020

President of Croatia

Incumbent

Assumed office

19 February 2020

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković

Preceded by Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović

Prime Minister of Croatia

In office

23 December 2011 – 22 January 2016

President Ivo Josipović

 Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović

Deputy Radimir Čačić

Branko Grčić

Milanka Opačić

Vesna Pusić

Preceded by Jadranka Kosor

Succeeded by Tihomir Orešković

Leader of the Opposition

In office

22 January 2016 – 26 November 2016

Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković

Andrej Plenković

Preceded by Tomislav Karamarko

Succeeded by Davor Bernardić

In office

2 June 2007 – 23 December 2011

Prime Minister Ivo Sanader

Jadranka Kosor

Preceded by Ivica Račan

Željka Antunović (Acting)

Succeeded by Jadranka Kosor

President of the Social Democratic Party

In office
 2 June 2007 – 26 November 2016

Deputy Zlatko Komadina

Gordan Maras

Milanka Opačić

Rajko Ostojić

Preceded by Ivica Račan

Željka Antunović (Acting)

Succeeded by Davor Bernardić

Personal details

Born 30 October 1966 (age 54)

Zagreb, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia

Political party Independent (2020–present)[a]

Other political SDP (1999–2020)

affiliations

Sanja Musić
Spouse(s)
 

(m. 1994)

Children 2

 Stipe Milanović
Parents
 Đurđica Matasić

Alma mater  University of Zagreb

 Free University of Brussels (Dutch)

Signature

Website Official website

This article is part of

a series about
Zoran Milanović

 Personal life
 Party president
 First term as Leader of the Opposition
 Second term as Leader of the Opposition
 Break from politics

Premiership

 Cabinet
 2012 EU accession referendum
 Anti-Cyrillic protests
 2013 constitutional referendum
 2014 floods
 2014–2016 war veterans protest
 European migrant crisis

Elections

 2011
 2015

President of Croatia

 Presidential campaign
 COVID-19 pandemic
 Zagreb earthquake
 Zagreb shooting
 Petrinja earthquake
 Elections

 2019–20

 v
 t
 e

Zoran Milanović (pronounced [zǒran milǎːnoʋitɕ] ( listen);[2] born 30 October 1966) is a

Croatian politician serving as President of Croatia since 19 February 2020. Prior to
assuming the presidency, he was prime minister from 2011 to 2016 and president of
the Social Democratic Party from 2007 to 2016.
After graduating from the Zagreb Faculty of Law, Milanović started working in
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as Advisor at the Croatian mission to
the European Union and NATO in Brussels from 1996 to 1999. During the same year he
joined the Social Democratic Party. In 1998 he earned his master's degree in European
Union law at the Flemish University in Brussels and was an assistant to the Croatian
foreign minister for political multilateral affairs in 2003. In June 2007 he was elected
president of the SDP, following the death of the long-time party leader and former prime
minister Ivica Račan. Under Milanović's leadership the party finished in second place in
the 2007 parliamentary election and was unable to form a governing majority. Despite
losing the election, he was reelected party leader in 2008. In 2011 Milanović initiated the
formation of the Kukuriku Coalition, uniting four centre to centre-left political parties. The
coalition won an absolute majority in the 2011 parliamentary election, with the SDP itself
becoming the largest party in Parliament. Milanović thus became Prime Minister on 23
December 2011, after the Parliament approved his cabinet.
The beginning of his prime ministership was marked by efforts to finalise the ratification
process of Croatia's entry into the European Union and by the holding of a membership
referendum. His cabinet introduced changes to the tax code, passed a fiscalisation law
and started several large infrastructure projects. After the increase in the value of
the Swiss franc, the government announced that all Swiss franc loans would be
converted into euros. Milanović supported the expansion of same-sex couples' rights
and introduced the Life Partnership Act. After the inconclusive 2015 election and more
than two months of negotiations on forming a government, he was ultimately succeeded
as prime minister by the nonpartisan technocrat Tihomir Orešković in January 2016.
After Orešković's government fell, Milanović led the four-party People's Coalition in the
subsequent snap parliamentary election in September 2016. In the election, his coalition
suffered a surprise defeat to the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union and Milanović
announced his withdrawal from politics. He then entered the consulting business and
worked as an advisor to Albanian prime minister Edi Rama.
On 17 June 2019, Milanović announced that he would be running for the office of
president in the 2019–20 election as the candidate of the Social Democratic Party; he
was officially nominated on 6 July. He received the most votes (29.55%) in the first
round of the election on 22 December 2019, ahead of incumbent president Kolinda
Grabar-Kitarović (26.65%) and was elected as the fifth president of Croatia in the runoff
on 5 January 2020, with 52.66% of the vote. He became the first presidential candidate
in Croatian history to receive more votes than an incumbent officeholder in the first
round of an election, the second person in Croatia to defeat an incumbent running for
reelection and the first (post-independence) prime minister of Croatia to be elected head
of state.