ZAGREB, October 27, 2018 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Saturday that his Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party would most likely run in elections for the European Parliament independently, voicing confidence that it would win.
Asked by reporters in Split if the HDZ would run in the spring 2019 polls independently, Plenković said they had not talked about it yet but most probably they would because they had many great potential candidates. He is confident the HDZ will win the elections because, he said, it runs a pro-European government and is part of the biggest political family in Europe, so it should contribute to the victory of the European People's Party.
Plenković dismissed the accusations of a referendum initiative for changing election legislation concerning the counting of the signatures collected. He said he saw nothing contentious in the count and that the Public Administration Ministry had invited everyone wishing to check the signatures declared invalid to do so, calling this highly transparent.
Asked if Croatia should put up a barrier along the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina given the migrant crisis, he said "we are not at that stage." "Croatia's border police, with 6,300 members, is protecting our border and preventing illegal migration in cooperation with the border police forces of our neighbours."
Plenkovicćsaid there would be no government reshuffle despite the fact that Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić's party now had ten MPs. He said Bandić was not asking for nor being offered anything.
He was speaking to the press after a meeting of the HDZ's Split county branch, which discussed what the government is doing for Dalmatia and other coastal regions as well as islands.
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