Politics

ZAGREB, 3 November, 2021 - The Croatian Journalists Association (HND) on Wednesday welcomed the fact that Croatian Radio-Television (HRT) has dropped suits against the HND and the chair of its Croatian Television (HTV) branch, inviting new HRT director-general Robert Šveb to drop all suits against journalists and media. The HRT has dropped a lawsuit it filed on 24 December 2018 against the HND and Sanja Mikleušević Pavić, an HTV journalist and president of the HND's HTV branch, over a September 2018 statement in which the branch condemned the resale of tickets to the World Football Championship, among other oversights, the HND said. The…

ZAGREB, 3 November, 2021 - Croatian Radio-Television (HRT) has dropped lawsuits against the Croatian Journalists Association (HND), its president Hrvoje Zovko, and the president of the HND's HRT branch, Sanja Mikleušević Pavić, the public broadcaster said on Wednesday. HRT director-general Robert Šveb held talks with HND representatives and said the HRT was open to dropping the lawsuits, which was eventually done, the HRT said, adding that the HRT thereby wished to underline the intention to cultivate a dialogue with the HND. The HRT demanded HRK 250,000 in defamation damages from Zovko as well as HRK 200,000 from the HND and HRK…

ZAGREB, 3 November, 2021 - Vice-president of the Zagreb branch of former mayor Milan Bandić's BM 365 - Labour and Solidarity Party, Slavko Kojić, on Wednesday described Mayor Tomislav Tomašević's claim that the amount of the city's debt was equal to its revenue, far above the 20% limit permitted by law, was scandalous. "The city cannot owe more than 20% of its revenue, that is a gross lie the mayor said in the City Assembly," Kojić, a former long-lasting head of the city's finance department during Bandić's term, claimed at a news conference. He went on to say that the city could…

ZAGREB, 3 Novmber, 2021 - Unlike many critics of columnist Boris Dežulović, MP Bojan Glavašević of the Green-Left Coalition sided with him on Wednesday, saying he too has been warning for years that Vukovar has been sacralised instead of being a town for the living because some politicians parasitise on it. "The thesis that Vukovar has been turned into a memorial ossuary and not a town for the living is clear from the very column when one goes further than the headline, and it seems that most of his loud critics haven't gone further than the headline. It's interesting that those whom…

ZAGREB, 3 November, 2021 - The ministry of war veterans' affairs said on Tuesday that Boris Dežulović's column, published by the N1 broadcaster on 2 November, is an insulting article against war victims in Vukovar due to the coarse and profane language used by the author. The ministry says that Dežulović "is trying to belittle all the victims of Vukovar and of the Homeland War." His column convinces us that "we must keep persevering with the promotion of the truth about the Homeland War" which helped the Croatian people to see the centuries-long dream about their state come truth. The ministry says…

ZAGREB, 3 November, 2021 - An association of Homeland War veterans in Vukovar-Srijem County said on Tuesday evening that President Zoran Milanović had intentionally shifted the attention to political one upmanship from the honouring of war victims during the commemoration in the Lužac suburb of Vukovar on Tuesday morning.  The association, which is called the Association of Patriotic War Volunteers and Veterans of the Republic of Croatia, says in a statement that the President's "political performance" at Lužac gave precedence to political rows over the sacrifice of local 69 inhabitants who were killed in Lužac in 1991. The commemoration at Lužac was neither the…

ZAGREB, 2 November, 2021 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Tuesday President Zoran Milanović's statements about the defence minister were primitive and brutal insults, adding that all problems would be discussed in the National Security Council on 9 November. "I want to hear first hand what the problems are and try to resolve them," Plenković said in Glasgow, where he was attending the UN conference on climate change (COP26). Commenting on Defence Minister Mario Banožić's statement that it was time to remove President Zoran Milanović from office, Plenković said the minister of defence hadn't said that but that it…

ZAGREB, 2 November, 2021 - Croatia will protect 30 percent of the Adriatic Sea under its jurisdiction and plant an additional one million trees annually by 2030, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković told a climate change summit in Glasgow on Tuesday, noting that climate change will irrevocably worsen people's lives, but that more ambitious action can mitigate it. Plenković was speaking at the UN conference on climate change (COP26), where world leaders presented their plans and made pledges to protect the environment. "Croatia intends to compensate the impact of tourists on CO2 emissions by planting more than a million additional trees annually…

ZAGREB, 2 Novmber, 2021 - The Ministry of Justice and Administration has banned the Association of Croatian Defence Force Combatants (UBHOS) because it refused to remove its slogan and salute "For the Homeland Ready" from its statute, the veteran association said on Tuesday. UBHOS said in a press release that they were "unofficially and unlawfully" informed this week that the Ministry of Justice and Administration had issued a decision signed by Minister Ivan Malenica refusing to extend the association's registration pursuant to the Associations Act because the association refused to remove "the military and Party of Rights slogan and salute 'For the…

ZAGREB, 2 November ,2021 - President Zoran Milnaović on Tuesday called out Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman for hypocrisy and "yet another outburst" after the foreign minister revealed the names of some of Milanović's candidates for ambassadorial posts, which the president today denied. The dispute between the president and government over new ambassadors has been ongoing for a year. Some of the names revealed as the president's candidates include former interior minister Ranko Ostojić, former environment protection minister Mihael Zmajlović and former ambassador to France Ivo Goldstein. Former foreign ministers Davor Ivo Stier and Miro Kovač and former diplomat Vladimir Drobnjak have been named…