The Italian Ambassador to Croatia, Paolo Trichilo, went on a mission to the Bjelovar and Bilogora region for economic and cultural meetings, as well as with local authorities and the Italian community. In Daruvar – the Aquae Balissae of the Romans – together with the mayor and two vice-presidents of the region, he visited the Modern Art Gallery to view the collection of the Italian painter Eva Fischer, recently donated by her family to the Croatian city, where the artist was born in 1920. The daughter of a rabbi who suffered Nazi deportation, after being interned during World War II, Eva Fischer managed to reach Italy, where she took part in the partisan struggle, moved to Rome (where she passed away in 2015), came into contact with world-famous artists such as Picasso, De Chirico and Dalì, and established herself as an appreciated artist; in 2007, she was awarded the title of Cavaliere dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.

   
In Pakrac, the Ambassador was received by the Mayor, the Hon. Anamarija Blažević, President of the Croatian Parliament’s Italy-Croatia Bilateral Friendship Section, at the industrial area, where Italian companies also operate. Here he met the Italian directors of the local factories of Dem, a manufacturer of Rfi filters for the household appliance and related sectors, with administrative/management offices in Longarone (Belluno), and Ices Ebm, based in Sacile (Pordenone), which designs and manufactures wound components for electronics.

   
He then travelled to the city of Lipik where, in addition to the mayor, he visited the headquarters of the Community of Italians. It is not a well-known fact that in Croatia, the officially recognised Italian minority is made up not only of the Istrian and Dalmatian component, but also of the descendants of the emigrants from Belluno around 1880 to the region in question, which was then under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The three Italian communities in Slavonia are part of the Italian Union.

   
Lastly, the Ambassador visited the production facilities of Lipik Glas, a company that in 2002 became part of the Italian ‘Isoclima Group’ of Este (Pordenone), a world leader in high-performance transparent solutions and a manufacturer of top-of-the-range automotive glass. The three companies visited have a total of almost 600 employees.

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