Politics

ZAGREB, June 14, 2020 - The Zagreb Municipal Prosecutor's Office has questioned six persons accused of publicly inciting to violence and hate in a Zagreb neighbourhood on June 11 and proposed detention, which a County Court investigating judge granted, the State Prosecutor's Office said on Sunday. Detention was set for the six young men to prevent them from repeating the crime after Zagreb police filed a criminal complaint against them and placed them in custody. All are Croatian nationals aged 19-22. After a police investigation, they were suspected of displaying a banner that insulted and incited to ethnic violence against Serb…

ZAGREB, June 14, 2020 - Prime Minister and HDZ president Andrej Plenkovic on Sunday once again condemned the shameful messages about Serbs which appeared in Zagreb in the past few days, saying modern Croatia had no reason for hate speech outbursts and that they should be condemned and punished in the strongest terms. "Those who are doing that, I don't know who they are following and on whose behalf they are doing it," he said in a public television talk show. There have already been such outbursts and it is up to the police to find out if the three recent…

ZAGREB, June 14 (Hina) - "Women rule" is the message of a left-green coalition led by the We Can! platform which presented outside parliament on Sunday the women who will head the coalition's slates in six constituencies and their programme. Sandra Bencic said that in their communities the women heading the slates worked on improving the lives of vulnerable groups, the economy, community building and solidarity within them. "The HDZ and the SDP each have one woman heading their slates, and we have six as well as full gender parity. We also have a programme which advocates gender equality, which is more…

ZAGREB, June 13, 2020 - A coalition comprising the Pametno, Fokus, Zagreb Independent Slate and Kvarner Union parties on Saturday presented its election platform which says that it is possible to cut taxes and keep a welfare state which would be wealthy and harmonious. Pametno presidency member Ivica Puljak said emigration and lagging behind Eastern European and neighbouring countries were among Croatia's biggest problems. "We have almost the same number of workers and pensioners, which is completely untenable for any economy." He said Croatia was in such a poor state because irresponsible politicians and policies constantly kept them in the…

ZAGREB, June 13, 2020 - The leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Davor Bernardic, said on Saturday he was confident that together with their partners from the centre-left Restart coalition they would win enough votes in the forthcoming election to form a firm and stable government. "Today is a very important day for the SDP on the road to a final victory at this election and I am certain that after this day we will be a step closer to it because we have the most competent people, as we showed at the European and presidential elections," Bernardic said in…

ZAGREB, June 13, 2020 - The leader of the conservative Bridge party, Bozo Petrov, on Saturday presented lead candidates for the July 5 parliamentary election, saying that these were the people fighting for a different Croatia than the one offered by those who have been running the country for the past 30 years. "We will fight for a Croatia in which everyone is entitled to a decent life and has equal rights because no one should be more equal than the others," said Petrov, who will head the party's slate in Constituency 10 which covers a southern part of Split-Dalmatia…

ZAGREB, June 13, 2020 - Robert Pauletic of the Homeland Movement said on Saturday that the party's condition for a possible coalition with the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) was that Andrej Plenkovic should no longer be the prime minister. "(Homeland Movement leader) Miroslav Skoro has already announced this saying that Plenkovic could be a good foreign minister but not the prime minister," Pauletic told the N1 television channel. He added that Plenkovic's ego probably would not allow him to be relegated from the position of the prime minister to that of foreign minister. "He has saved his premiership several times,…

 ZAGREB, June 12, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Friday praised his government for all it had done to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, stressing that it had stood by the workers and employers and shown "the strength of the state" during the crisis. "In this corona crisis you could see how our government managed to quickly and effectively prevent this epidemic from spreading in Croatia while at the same time standing, like no government before it, by the workers, employers and all those who would probably have ended up on the dole had it not been for…

ZAGREB, June 12, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic formally opened the Office of the Foundation of the Sarajevo Archdiocese in the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar on Friday, saying that Croatia's relationship with Bosnia and Herzegovina was very important to his government. "We have considerably increased funds for specific projects including education, healthcare, culture, and the economy. We have increased trade and intensified our relationship with Bosnia and Herzegovina by opening two consulates, offices of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, a broadcasting organization, and have improved transport connectivity," Plenkovic told the press after the opening ceremony. "All this helps…

ZAGREB, June 12, 2020 - The Bridge party and the Croatian Republican Party (HRS), a non-parliamentary party active in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Friday, signed an agreement on their coalition for Croatia's parliamentary elections in constituency no.11 covering Croatian nationals abroad. Bridge political secretary Nikola Grmoja said at a news conference that this alliance enables "the Croat people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Diaspora to finally have their authentic representatives of integrity, who will represent the Croatian people from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Diaspora in a coherent manner in the Sabor." The leader of the HRS party, Slaven…