ZAGREB, April 8, 2019 - The ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) submitted its slate for the European Parliament elections to the State Election Commission (DIP) on Monday morning, and on that occasion, the party leader and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said that this slate was strong and provided guarantees for the protection of Croatian national interests.

"The HDZ has chosen a very strong and quality list of candidates that includes two current Croatian MEPs, three deputies in the national parliament, two very active and successful county prefects, of Šibenik and Slavonski Brod Counties, and another four candidates that are excellent in their careers and skilful in pursuing European policies," Plenković said after the slate was submitted.

Those who are elected will be very good in articulating and protecting Croatia's national interests, all of them know very well how the EU and the EP function, Plenković said.

"The slate is comprehensive," he said, dismissing speculations that it was made up on the party chief's orders. He recalled that the candidates had been nominated by county and local branches and that the slate was endorsed unanimously in a democratic process.

Plenković expressed his conviction that the HDZ will win the EP elections in Croatia, set for 26 May.

The HDZ slate for the EP elections is headed by Karlo Ressler, a 30-year-old party official who coordinated the preparation of the HDZ platform for the upcoming European elections and whom the HDZ Youth unanimously nominated for the list which was presented to the public on Friday evening.

The second place of the 12-candidate slate is occupied by a Croatian MEP, Dubravka Šuica, and she is followed by MP Tomislav Sokol, while one more HDZ MEP, Željana Zovko, ranks fourth, and she is followed by two members of the national parliament, Sunčana Glavak and Marijana Balić.

The slate also includes the heads of Šibenik-Knin and Brod-Posavina Counties - Goran Pauk and Danijel Marušić, respectively - Transport Ministry state secretary Nikolina Brnjac, Osijek-Baranja County Development Agency head Stjepan Ribić, Split-Dalmatia County Port Authority head Domagoj Maroević, and assistant HDZ secretary-general Stjepan Adanić.

More election news can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 7, 2019 - The candidate slate of the Croatian People's Party (HNS), which the party submitted to the State Election Commission on Sunday, is headed by Matija Posavec who said the HNS expected to win one seat in the European elections.

Posavec said that during the campaign, the HNS would focus on how to use European institutions in the best possible way.

Representatives of the Green party also submitted their slate to the State Election Commission Sunday. Party president Nenad Matić said they were running in the election under the slogan "Let's recycle waste, not the past."

The president of the regional HDSSB party, Branimir Glavaš, said Sunday the HDSSB executive committee decided that the party would not run for a seat in the European Parliament, adding that its members should vote following their conscience.

More news about the upcoming European elections can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 6, 2019 - The non-parliamentary party called START, which was recently established by lawyer Dalija Orešković, a former head of the Conflict of Interest Commission, on Saturday presented its 12-member slate for the forthcoming elections for the European Parliament.

Apart from members of this party, also two independent parliamentary deputies are nominated as START candidates for future MEPs: Bojan Glavašević and Tomislav Žagar, who used to be officials of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The slate also includes lawyer Nicole Kwiatkowski, who is perceived in the public as an attorney promoting the rights of holders of loans that used to be denominated in the Swiss franc.

The remaining nine candidates are the party leader Orešković as well as Lejla Sehić Relić, Duje Prkut, Branka Lukačević-Gregić, Marina Pavković, Pero Mrnarević, Tonći Talaja, Igor Vlajnić and Nebojša Biškup.

Dalija Orešković told a press conference that this was a victorious option that would like to bring together the left centre.

The slate will advocate values of anti-corruption, anti-Fascism and of the future-oriented Europe, she said expressing hope that the slate will win one of the 12 seats allotted for Croatia in the EP.

Glavašević said the programme of this slate revolves around anti-corruption as well as safety and security of people, individuals, borders, and the market.

More news about the European elections can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 6, 2019 - The slate of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) for the European Parliament elections is headed by Karlo Ressler, a 30-year-old party official who coordinated the preparation of the HDZ platform for the upcoming European elections and whom the HDZ Youth unanimously nominated for the list which was presented to the public on Friday evening.

The second place of the 12-candidate slate is occupied by a Croatian MEP, Dubravka Šuica,and she is followed by MP Tomislav Sokol, while one more HDZ MEP, Željana Zovko, ranks fourth and she is followed by two members of the national parliament, Sunčana Glavak and Marijana Balić.

The slate which also includes the heads of Šibenik-Knin and Brod-Posavina counties - Goran Pauk and Danijel Marušić, respectively, Transport Ministry state secretary Nikolina Brnjac, Osijek-Baranja County Development Agency head Stjepan Ribić, Split-Dalmatia County Port Authority head Domagoj Maroević, and assistant HDZ secretary-general Stjepan Adanić was unanimously adopted at meetings of the HDZ Presidency, National Council, and the Main Committee which considered the party's platform for the EP elections called "Croatia for Generations".

Presenting the slate at a news conference on late Friday evening, HDZ leader and Prime Minister Plenković said that the party platform for the upcoming elections had five planks that concentrate on a successful European Croatia, growth- and enterprise-friendly Europe, a Europe pursuing values of Democrat Christians and solidarity, a new generation Europe, and a safe and globally strong Europe.

Plenković expressed confidence in a convincing victory of his party in the elections which will be held on 26 May.

Recent projections released by the European Parliament show that the party is set to win six of the 12 seats, allotted to Croatia in the next European Parliament, (EP), while the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) can expect three seats and the Živi Zid, the GLAS-led Amsterdam Coalition and the MOST party can win one seat each.

More news about HDZ can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 5, 2019 - The Amsterdam Coalition on Friday submitted its slate for the European Parliament elections, with Anka Mrak Taritaš saying the vote was important as citizens could choose between a Europe of barbed wire fences and the Brexit chaos and the open and free Europe they advocate.

The slate was submitted by the presidents of the parties making up the coalition: Krešo Beljak (Peasant Party), Mrak Taritaš (GLAS), Boris Miletić (Istrian Democratic Party), Silvano Hrelja (Pensioners' Party) , Darijo Vasilić (PGS), David Bregovac (Labour Party), Mirando Mrsić (Democrats) and the head of the slate, Istria County prefect Valter Flego.

Beljak said Croatia had been yearning for more than 30 years to be part of Europe, albeit not the Eastern Europe as offered by Poland and Hungary, but the real Central Europe. A vote for our coalition is a vote for a European Croatia and all other parties and movements are offering something else, he added.

He wondered where Croatia should go and if its citizens wanted to go west and have as models Germany, Scandinavian countries and Ireland, which he said had transformed over the past 30 years from a conservative and backward country into one of the most progressive in Europe.

More news about Amsterdam Coalition can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 2, 2019 - The Independents for Croatia (NHR) and the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) have signed an agreement on cooperation in the coming elections for the European Parliament and their joint slate will be presented next week.

The agreement on cooperation demonstrates our political will and readiness for cooperation with similar political parties, NHR political secretary and member of parliament Zlatko Hasanbegović told a news conference in the parliament on Tuesday.

The NHR and the HSP share the same Party-of-Right political legacy of Ante Starčević, a common vision about the status of the Croatian nation and state in the EU and a common vision of Europe as a community of free, sovereign and independent nations, said Hasanbegović.

Hasanbegović said the joint slate for European elections would be presented next week and would include, apart from himself and the other NHR member of parliament Bruna Esih, HSP leader Karlo Starčević and Kutina Mayor Damir Markuš.

The two parties' goal in elections for the European Parliament is to win at least one seat, the parties' leaders said at the news conference at which they would not answer reporters' questions.

More news about elections in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 1, 2019 - Elections for councils and individual representatives representing national minorities in local communities throughout Croatia will be held on 5 May, in compliance with a recent decision made by the government, however, they seem to be overshadowed by preparations for the elections for the European Parliament, set for 26 May.

In Croatia, members of 14 ethnic minorities are eligible to elect 515 councils, whereas members of 20 minorities can elect 144 individual representatives.

Councils representing an ethnic minority are set up in local communities in which the pertaining minority makes up at least 1.5% of the local population, or if there are more than 200 members of an ethic minority in a municipality or town or more than 500 members in the area of a county. Municipal councils representing ethnic minorities include 10 representatives, city-level councils of this kind consist of 15 representatives and county-level councils include 25 members.

When it comes to the county level, 20 have such councils and their aggregate number is 74 and only Krapina-Zagorje County does not have a sufficient percentage of minorities to have such a representative body. On the other hand, there are eight councils in Istria and Primorje-Gorski Kotar counties each.

The capital city of Zagreb has a total of nine (9) ethnic minority councils representing ethnic Albanians, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Czechs, Hungarians, Macedonians, Roma, Slovenians and Serbs.

As many as 171 cities and 270 municipalities are expected to organise elections for councils representing ethnic minorities' interests.

If there are at least 100 ethnic minority members living in a local community but not enough for the election of a council, that minority is then eligible to elect its single representative.

Thus, 20 minorities elect their respective 144 representatives in all 21 counties (89 on aggregate) and 54 in cities. Such an election is going to be organised only in one municipality, and that is Matulji where ethnic Italians will elect their single representative.

In the previous elections for ethnic minority councils and representatives which took place in Croatia in May 2015, there were 280,000 eligible voters who were entitled to elect 288 councils and 25,000 eligible voters who could elect individual ethnic representatives.

Elections for ethnic minorities' councils or representatives were introduced in 2003. All the four previous elections of this kind were marked by a low turnout.

More news about the status of national minorities in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 1, 2019 - The opposition Živi Zid party on Sunday presented its slate for the forthcoming European Parliament elections, with its leader Ivan Vilibor Sinčić calling on voters to go to the polls on 26 May in large numbers.

In his speech, Sinčić said that in that way voters would contribute to the struggle for the future of the Croatian people "within a huge European mechanism of centralised decision-making".

"We are here to decide on whether the future of Croatia and the Croatian people will be servility or freedom," said he.

The slate is headed by the party's secretary-general Tihomir Lukanić.

In mid-March the party presented a joint platform with a group of European populist parties for May's European Parliament election in Zagreb, when Sinčić said that they were a new generation of politicians who would build a new and better Europe.

The platform which Sinčić said is advocating an honest Europe that will be closer to citizens and that will fight against corruption and organised crime was presented by him and the leaders of kindred European parties - Luigi di Maio from Italy's 5 Star Movement, Pawel Kukiz from the Polish party Kukiz 15 and Evangellos Tsompanidis from Greece's AKKEL.

According to the latest projections released by the European Parliament on Friday, Živi Zid can expect one out of 12 seats in the EP allotted to Croatia, whereas the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) is set to win six seats, the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) three seats and the GLAS-led Amsterdam Coalition and the MOST party could win one seat each.

It was the third such projection of the composition of the next EP released by the Parliament and based on polls on voting intentions in the EU member-states.

Initial projections of the composition of the new European Parliament indicated that of 12 seats reserved for Croatia the HDZ would win six, the SDP three, Živi Zid two and MOST one.

More news about Živi Zid can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, March 31, 2019 - The Work and Solidarity Party of Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić on Saturday marked the fourth anniversary of its establishment and presented its slate for the coming elections for the European Parliament, set for May 26.

Bandić said that the slate consisted of 11 reputable individuals from various walks of life, none of whom were members of his party, and that only Jelena Pavičić Vukičević, vice-president of the Solidarity and Work Party, was a party member.

He said that the final order of the candidates on the slate would be determined in the coming days.

"Of the 12 candidates on the Work and Solidarity Party slate, 11 are people who are very successful in their field of work, from tourism to economy and from architecture to biochemistry," said Bandić.

He said that he was confident Croatian voters would notice this and called on them to take part in elections for the European Parliament.

"I believe that Croatia needs a change and that national interests should be represented in the European Parliament, that economic growth should be strengthened and that Croatia should be a partner to the EU to a greater extent."

Asked how many seats he expected his slate to win, he said that voters would be the ones to decide.

More news about Milan Bandić can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, March 31, 2019 - Opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Davor Bernardić said on Saturday that Croatia could not be free or progressive without a strong social democracy and a strong SDP, recalling that his party had led Croatia into the EU and that now it should lead a fight to ensure equality for Croatia in the EU.

Addressing a convention of the SDP branch in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in Čavle, Bernardić presented candidates on the SDP's slate for elections for the European Parliament, including former minister of the interior Ranko Ostojić, former SDP member and environmental protection minister Mirela Holy, member of parliament Gordan Maras, former deputy foreign minister Joško Klisović, former war veterans minister Predrag Matić, and members of the European Parliament Biljana Borzan and Tonino Picula.

Bernardić said that the number of male and female candidates on the slate was the same.

The head of the SDP county branch, Zlatko Komadina, said that the SDP still carried the banner of free thinking in Croatia.

If our government puts an equal sign between Jasenovac and Bleiburg, it is only natural that Austrians have to enlighten us, said Komadina in reference to a recent decision by the Gurk-Klagenfurt Diocese in Austria to deny permission for this year's Mass in the Loibach field as part of a ceremony commemorating members of Nazi-allied Croatian forces killed there at the end of World War II.

Answering reporters' questions, he said that the EU had slid into neo-liberal capitalism, that 18 EU countries used to have Social Democrat governments while today there were only eight such governments, and that only Social Democrats could reverse current neo-fascist and extremely conservative trends.

Commenting on the current situation in the shipbuilding sector, Komadina said that the shipyards had not been managed well and that no government had controlled how state guarantees for ships were spent. He called for a solution to the current situation in the ailing Uljanik shipbuilding group that would enable its takeover by another legal person.

MEP Tonino Picula said, among other things, that the government's response to the crisis in Uljanik was not as proactive as had been the case during the crisis in the Agrokor food and retail group, when, he said, the government reacted promptly to prevent its negative impact on the economy.

More news on the European elections can be found in the Politics section.