Politics

ZAGREB, December 5, 2019 - Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who is running for her second term in office, at midnight on Wednesday formally launched her campaign in Dražice, in the hinterland of Rijeka, which is her birthplace. Addressing a crowd in the local cultural centre, the incumbent president recalled that she also launched the campaign for her first term in her birthplace five years ago. She said during her campaign trail tour this time, she would travel through Croatia from its southernmost peninsula of Prevlaka to the eastern town of Vukovar. "I believe that Croatia can become one of the…

ZAGREB, December 4, 2019 - Social Democratic Party (SDP) parliamentary whip Arsen Bauk said on Wednesday that his party would start collecting signatures for a motion for a vote of no confidence in Education Minister Blaženka Divjak, whom the SDP considers the most responsible, together with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, for the situation in the education system. "We plan to start collecting the signatures today so that we can collect the (required number of) signatures for the no-confidence motion to be tabled during the ongoing regular session, which ends on 15 December," Bauk told the press. The SDP will collect…

ZAGREB, December 4, 2019 - The County Court in the coastal city of Zadar has handed down a final verdict in the case of businessman Tomislav Horvatinčić, charged with causing a maritime accident in which an Italian couple were killed in August 2011. The court, however, would not confirm media reports that the trial court's conviction of four years and ten months in prison has been upheld. "The ruling was made on Monday, and on Tuesday it was dispatched to the Municipal Court in Šibenik which delivered the first-instance ruling. That's all I can confirm," Zadar County Court spokesman Hrvoje…

Croatia MUP representatives released a statement today regarding the Nigerian students who had reported to the Bosnian portal Žurnal that they were arrested by Croatian police in Zagreb, forcibly taken to Bosnian border and then left there. Police Claim They Didn’t Act on Skin Color Croatian police have dismissed those allegations, according to their statement as reported by Index on December 4, 2019. "Claims that Croatian police acts and condemns individuals on the basis of their skin color are unacceptable and we strongly reject them! The police have verified the accusations of the alleged treatment of the Nigerian nationals in…

ZAGREB, December 4, 2019 - The Croatian army guarantees the country's security and the NATO membership and its Article 5 give Croatia the key umbrella of collective security, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in London ahead of a NATO summit. "For us it's important that the Croatian army is the guarantor of our security, thanks first and foremost to the freedom achieved with the dedication of Croatian defenders, and membership of NATO and its Article 5 give us that key umbrella of collective security which in future, and today as well, will prevent any aggression against Croatia such as the…

ZAGREB, December 4, 2019 - The Interior Ministry on Tuesday responded to a news item about the illegal deportation of two Nigerian students to Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying Croatian police did not have their legal departure from Croatia on record and that they did not know how they ended up in BiH. Abia Uchenna Alexandro and Eboh Kenneth Chinedu, both 18, have told Bosnian website Žurnal that Croatian police deported them to BiH, treating them as illegal migrants despite the fact that they arrived in Croatia with valid visas. The police told Hina that five Nigerian citizens - four students…

ZAGREB, December 4, 2019 - The Croatian State Election Commission received 12 candidate petitions for the December 22 presidential election by the deadline of midnight on Tuesday, but one of them has been found not to be backed up by the required 10,000 signatures. "One petition does not have signatures, but was filed anyway because it was submitted on a proper form," the deputy head of the State Election Commission, Vesna Fabijančić Križanić, told a press conference after the expiry of the deadline for submission of candidacies at midnight. The names of the candidates will be announced on the Commission's…

ZAGREB, December 3, 2019 - The GONG nongovernmental organisation said on Tuesday that it was intolerable that the government was disregarding laws and undermining the work of the independent Commission for the Prevention of Conflict of Interest, noting that a team should be sent to investigate the government for hiding documents in the Helsinki case. "We are witnessing a situation in which an important anti-corruption body, chaired by Nataša Novaković, a week before International Anti-Corruption Day, December 9, is closing the Helsinki case because the prime minister and the government are persistently refusing to hand over documents on a trip…

An almost unbelievable story about a couple of Nigerian students visiting Zagreb appeared in the Bosnian media today. [Let's preface this article by saying that no Croatian news media has thus far been able to corroborate the story, so it's possible that things aren't exactly like Bosnian Žurnal says they are, but we're sure more will be written about this in days to come.] The story is as follows: a group of Nigerian nationals (four students and a teacher) participated in the 5th World InterUniversities Championships, which took place on the 13th - 17th of November in Pula, Croatia. 18-year…

ZAGREB, December 3, 2019 - Incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović on Tuesday handed in to the State Election Commission lists with 231,652 signatures of support for her presidential bid. "I thank everyone who gave their signatures, whether HDZ members, supporters or other Croatian citizens. I also thank the party for supporting my candidacy and other parties that have supported me as well as volunteers who collected signatures," Grabar-Kitarović said after handing in lists with supporters' signatures. Commenting on her statement that she would take Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić cakes to prison if he was convicted, she said that "in every democratic…