Asked by a reporter from Croatia's RTL television if she would keep her promise to visit Croatia after elections in Germany, Merkel, speaking at her first press conference after winning the election, said she first had to form the government and that she would like to visit Croatia.

"I also hope that Croatia will honour everything we have agreed in the EU," she said. "I'm sorry that just after (Croatia's EU) accession there has been talk of what is not being strictly honoured and that we are again talking about what we have already agreed."

Merkel did not come to Zagreb on June 30 to a celebration of Croatia's EU entry. The official explanation was that she did not have the time.

The media extensively wrote that her absence was a message to Croatia not to impose a time limit in a law on the application of the European Arrest Warrant. The law would later be dubbed Lex Perkovic after Josip Perkovic, a former Yugoslav and Croatian intelligence officer wanted in Germany for the alleged involvement in the 1983 murder of Croatian dissident Stjepan Djurekovic in Bavaria.