Yet, Sven Milekic, a Zagreb-based journalist at Balkan Insight, rejected the notion that Generation of Renovation represents a break from the country’s traditional far right. “They always talk about the second world war and the Homeland War. “They have an old methodology of political work,” he told Al Jazeera.
While Croatia’s mainstream political establishment has drifted further right in recent years – a process that has seen the normalisation of neo-fascist themes – Cirko and his fellow party members decided to start the new party after pre-existing far-right groups effectively collapsed during parliamentary elections in 2016. Last year, two months after Generation of Renovation’s establishment, the party was able to land councillors, including Cirko, in a pair of neighbourhoods in western Zagreb. Placing his coffee cup on the table and folding his hands, the 28-year-old said he founded the far-right Generation of Renovation party in February 2017 with the hopes of creating a Croatian version alt-right and the anti-immigrant European Identitarian movement.
The alt-right is a loosely knit coalition of white nationalists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis who campaign for an exclusively white ethnostate in North America. Zagreb, Croatia – Frano Cirko sat in an upscale cafe in the Croatian capital and took sips of an espresso as he boasted of founding the country’s version of the “alt-right” movement.
