Some parties wanted Parliament to meet one last time, but SDP was against.
Parliament Speaker Željko Reiner confirmed on Monday, after a session of the Parliamentary Presidency, that MPs will not meet by Friday, 15 July, when the decision on Parliament’s dissolution will come into effect. He accused SDP, “the second largest party in the country”, for not wanting to meet, reports Index.hr on July 11, 2016.
Reiner told reporters that there was an idea that the final parliamentary session would be held on Friday, but that SDP blocked it, so it was concluded that it made no sense to convene Parliament, since “it was very uncertain that a quorum would be achieved without the participation of the second largest party in the country”.
He explained that SDP president Zoran Milanović said earlier in the media that SDP did not want to participate in the continuation of the parliamentary session, and reported that he tried this morning to get him on a phone to convince him that the issues which were to be discussed by the lawmakers – ratification of the agreement on the accession of Montenegro to NATO and the election of the Ombudsperson – were topics of national importance. “In this way, we concluded that there was no point to convene a session”, said Reiner.
On a reporter’s remark that a quorum was the task of the parliamentary majority, meaning HDZ and MOST, the Speaker just reiterated that SDP “unfortunately sent a message that they did not want to participate in it”. “I think this is not good, I think it is something that should be achieved by consensus. Both sides have always claimed they want Croatia to be a leader in the region, and now when we should ratify this agreement, one party clearly does not want to participate”, he said.
Miroslav Šimić, chairman of the MOST Parliamentary Group, said that it was not right that MPs should receive a full salary for not working. “Of course it is not right, we have not worked since 20 June”, he said. “The position of MOST was clear from the beginning. We were supposed to continue working after 20 June.”
