Pre-presidency work conferences presided by some of the ministers of the
Government of Croatia were held in
Split,
Rijeka,
Osijek and
Varaždin. The next day,
prime minister of Croatia Andrej Plenković and
president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen held a
press conference at the Congress Hall of the National and University Library. At the start of the presidency, two of Croatia's main priorities were dealing with issues arising from Brexit, and negotiating with
Balkan countries that were
interested in joining the European Union. The
coronavirus pandemic forced the presidency into crisis mode, and although there were some disjointed efforts during the early stages of the pandemic, the European Union came together to work on a number of common goals, including bringing more than 500,000 European Union citizens stranded elsewhere in the world back home, and proposing
a coronavirus relief package worth hundreds of billions of
euros. ==Cultural events==