Politics

ZAGREB, 17 April 2021 - The anti-corruption office USKOK back in January this year asked to inspect contracts between a company owned by Vinko Kojundžić and the Health Ministry, Jutarnji List reports on Saturday, noting that a HRK 5.2 million deal was signed by Minister Vili Beroš and the companies Cuspis, IN2 and In-Con. According to unofficial reports, anti-corruption investigators at the beginning of this year launched a preliminary probe into some of the contracts and deals signed by the Health Ministry and IN2 and Cuspis, whose founder and director Vinko Kojundžić designed the COVID-19 vaccination registration platform cijepise.zdravlje.hr where citizens…

ZAGREB, 17 April 2021 - The KOHOM association of family doctors on Saturday dismissed as untrue Health Minister Vili Beroš's claim that they indiscriminately refer non-emergency patients to emergency services and that not enough family doctors have joined mobile teams for vaccination against COVID-19 in Zagreb. KOHOM says in a statement that it most strongly condemns the part of the draft reform measures, presented by the minister at a session of the parliamentary health and social policy committee, which concern primary health care. Beroš said a major anomaly in primary health care was "the referral of non-emergency patients to hospital emergency services"…

ZAGREB, 16 April, 2021 - Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Peđa Grbin on Friday claimed that the Prime Minister and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) president Andrej Plenković was the "obstacle to all reforms and changes in Croatia." "Dear Andrej, instead of getting riled up and complaining that the opposition doesn't understand anything, tell us why are you keeping the healthcare reform on the shelf," Grbin sent Plenković a message on his Facebook profile in reaction to the prime minister's claims that while the National Recovery and Resilience Plan was being presented in parliament the opposition showed "its "emptiness, hollowness, a lack…

ZAGREB, 16 April, 2021 - The Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) on Friday presented the results of its latest survey showing that there are currently at least 924 lawsuits against the media and reporters in Croatia with plaintiffs seeking HRK 78.5 million in damages. The real number of lawsuits may be even greater because the data collected refers to only 23 media outlets, HND president Hrvoje Zovko said at a news conference in Zagreb. The HND says on its website that "same as last year, Hanza Media has the highest number of lawsuits, 479 of them, with the average indemnity demands of…

ZAGREB, 16 April, 2021 - The Homeland Movement (DP) on Friday strongly criticised the State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures (DKOM), saying its head Maja Kuhar "built her career during the term of the (Zoran) Milanović government" and calling Croatia one of the most corrupt countries globally. "The key problem with the DKOM is that its name does not befit it. It does not supervise public procurement procedures but only resolves appeals in those procedures," DP MP Daniel Spajić said during a debate on the commission's work in 2019. He claims that many evidently corrupt procedures, like the one for the digitisation of the health system, were not appealed against…

OSTZAGREB, 16 April, 2021 - Member of Parliament Zvonimir Troskot of the MOST party on Friday said that huge corruption risks and scandals are hiding under the guise of fight against COVID-19, warning of a new scandal regarding the Cijepise (Get vaccinated) application. Yet another scandal is about to break regarding the Cijepise application whose design was awarded in a non-transparent way to a good friend of Health Minister Vili Beroš's, with details of the deal having been hidden for months, Troskot told a press conference in Parliament House. "Huge corruption risks and scandals are being hidden under the guise of fighting…

April 16, 2021-  The Human Rights in Croatia 2020 Overview report by Human rights house Zagreb shows hate speech and poor living conditions of Serb returnees and Roma people still being problematic. The judicial system and the lack of a legal frame for civil society development remain problematic too. In a battle against the Coronavirus, many agree and fear that human rights were put in second place, triggering the debate of security vs. liberty and justification of limiting movement, work, etc. But human rights and their respect in Croatia was an issue, long before Covid-19. As Jutarnji List warns, the…

ZAGREB, 15 April, 2021 - Croatia wants to see Bosnia and Herzegovina as a future member of the European Union because that is the only way to ensure stability in this area, and Bosnia and Herzegovina will have all our support, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said on Thursday. "Bosnia and Herzegovina is our most important neighbour, a country with which we share 1,100 kilometres of border, a country made up of two entities, three equal peoples, including Croats, and it is our constitutional and moral obligation to help Bosnia and Herzegovina on its European path," Grlić Radman said…

ZAGREB, 15 April, 2021 - Parliamentary opposition parties on Thursday criticised the government's plan to pay a COVID supplement to pensioners and a tax refund to young people in the run-up to local elections as vote buying. Arsen Bauk of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) told reporters in the parliament building that the government "has obviously sorted its priorities to ensure the best possible election result" for the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). "We support a COVID supplement for pensioners, even before elections. I think the Croatian democracy is mature enough and that this will not result in voters voting en masse…

ZAGREB, 14 April, 2021 - Health Minister Vili Beroš said on Wednesday that the government and representatives of drug wholesalers had reached agreement on a debt settlement scheme. The issue of the debt made the wholesalers restrict and defer the deliveries of medicines to hospitals in late March. "Today's meeting is one more step towards the debt settlement," Minister Beroš said adding that only together the two sides could solve this decades-long issue which became exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finance Minister Zdravko Marić outlined the elements of the scheme. In the next three months we will transfer some funds to…