ZAGREB, 1 May 2022 - President Zoran Milanović said on Sunday that "we are not in a normal situation, Croatia and Europe are at a crossroads," adding that he is "sorry for Croatia" and that he will "fight with all my might" not to give room to the ruling HDZ party to destroy Croatia.
Speaking to the press in Varaždin, where he celebrated International Workers' Day, Milanović reiterated that the HDZ was a "gang."
"I watch what I say. Not everything will be nice, but 90% of the things I say have been considered beforehand," he said, adding that he does not have political instruments. "I don't have... the parliamentary majority, which I didn't steal like (HDZ leader and PM Andrej) Plenković. Therefore I have to say certain things."
The president also commented on Serb National Council president and MP Milorad Pupovac's statement that Milanović was a jug that would soon break.
"He is totally insignificant, a profiteer. People voted for me... Nobody votes for him," he said, adding that Pupovac "steals from the state budget."
He criticised Pupovac for saying in parliament that the 1995 Operation Storm was ethnic cleansing, asking him to explain that to the 7th Guard Brigade's Varaždin defenders.
"They were liberating that area not from Serbs but from a military enemy and they have not one crime behind them," Milanović said. "He's not a Serb, he's a common petty thief."
International Workers' Day
Celebrating International Workers' Day with the people of Varaždin, the president said "it's more difficult to be a unionist than ever" because "employers are dispersed on many more positions."
"A worker is someone who lives off their pay," he said, adding that inflation affects such people the most, not just in Croatia.
This situation has much less to do with workers' rights and much more with geopolitics and the systemic global policy "which is devouring us at the moment," Milanović said.
He explained that he decided to celebrate International Workers' Day in Varaždin because that northern city "has had the biggest May Day celebration in Croatia for 30 years already."
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