ZAGREB, November 27, 2019 - Social Democrat Member of Parliament Nenad Stazić told Prime Minister Andrej Plenković during Question Time in parliament on Wednesday that there would probably have been enough money for striking teachers if the government had sent less money to Herzegovina and spent less on the Catholic Church, veterans' benefits and privileged pensions.
"Have you considered no longer giving billions (of kuna) to the Catholic Church, finally putting an end to an ever-growing number of war veterans and their privileges, making the president of the republic stop giving privileged pensions according to her liking and stop sending money to Herzegovina? Maybe then you would have enough money to meet the demands of those who teach children," said Stazić.
Plenković responded that it was unbelievable Stazić was mentioning war veterans in this context, stressing that his government had rectified numerous injustices done to veterans and shown respect for the dignity of the Homeland War.
He repeated that the latest offer to striking teachers was integral, adding that money for a wage increase existed because plans to lower the VAT rate had been given up.
"You evidently do not want to solve this problem and want to keep children uneducated because the more uneducated, stupid and primitive they are, the more easily they will vote for the HDZ," said Stazić.
Krešo Beljak of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) said Plenković had got lost in his political activity because he was assuming political responsibility for everything. "Problems in the school system should have been dealt with by the education minister or you should have fired her. You are not responsible for the arms smuggling incident, the defence minister is. A prime minister cannot be responsible for every problem in every department," said Beljak, to which Plenković repeated the government's offer to striking teachers' unions, claiming that there had been no arms smuggling incident in the army.
"Everyone responsible for non-compliance with discipline in the Croatian Army has been relieved of duty, new commanders have been appointed. An investigation is underway and the Zadar County Police Department has filed a report. There was no smuggling, there was unauthorised entry into the Zemunik air base," said Plenković.
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