Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor led ceremonies to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of the country's first founder president Franjo Tudjman.

Kosor and other top officials laid wreaths at Tudjman's mausoleum and paid rich tributes to the fervent nationalist, who steered his country for the first nine years after it proclaimed independence from the former Yugoslavia.

- Since coming to power as the head of state, Franjo Tudjman dreamed of Croatia joining the rest of Europe and tried to make it happen - said Kosor.

- I think we are now at the end of that journey - she said.

Croatia is hoping to join the European Union in 2011 or 2012.

Tudman's political party HDZ (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica, Croatian Democratic Union) won the first post-communist multi-party elections in 1990 and he became the president of the country.

A year later he proclaimed the Croatian declaration of independence and was reelected twice and remained in power until his death in December 1999 at the age of 77.

After the independence proclamation, war followed between Zagreb and Serb secessionists, backed by Belgrade, claiming some 20,000 lives between 1991 and 1995.

In November 2000, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said Tudjman could have been charged for war crimes had he been alive.

Franjo je bio legenda...iako malo crven no ipak u tom trenutku je uspio ono šta su mnogi pokušavali