ZAGREB, December 15, 2018 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on Friday strongly dismissed accusations that he was involved in "the political game", or political horse-trading, that facilitated the adoption of the Zagreb city budget for 2019 on Thursday.

"I dismiss the accusations... this is now happening on a daily basis, it could almost be a topic here at the European Council, which also discussed disinformation," Plenković said in Brussels where he was attending a two-day summit of EU leaders.

The summit discussed, among other topics, the fight against disinformation campaigns in order to ensure, among other things, fair elections for the European Parliament next spring.

The necessary majority to vote in the Zagreb city budget was secured by three members of opposition parties in the city assembly, who voted for Mayor Milan Bandić's budget proposal even though their parties had decided not to support it. The budget was passed by a two-vote margin.

The three City Assembly members, who tipped the balance in favour of Bandić, were expelled from their respective parties amid accusations that they supported the budget in exchange for personal benefits.

Pointing the finger at Mayor Bandić and Prime Minister Plenković, the opposition said that this was a political trade-off and mutual securing of the majority in the national parliament and the city assembly.

Plenković also commented on the resignation of President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović's advisor on national security, Vlado Galić, and speculation that another of her advisors, Mate Radeljić, would leave in January as well.

"The President chose her advisors on her own, I presume that she also makes decisions to relieve them of duty or accept their resignations on her own," he said when asked if those officials had become a burden to Grabar-Kitarović considering that they were being mentioned in the context of the fake text message scandal, and whether the HDZ had made its support to Grabar-Kitarović's campaign for the next presidential term conditional on their departure.

More news about the latest events in Croatian politics can be found in our special section.

ZAGREB, December 11, 2018 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said at the fifth meeting of government officials and prefects of Croatian counties and representatives of the associations of towns and municipalities and the parliament's local government committee in Rijeka on Tuesday that the government's cooperation with counties had become "systematic, open, and based on partnership."

The relationship between the government and county heads has become friendly, we all understand each other's priorities and look for ways for individual ministries to support Croatia's regional development, help reduce inequalities, create a positive legislative framework and find adequate budget funding, Plenković said, stressing that changes to the Act on the Financing of Local and Regional Government Units had made two billion kuna available to local government units in the first 11 months of this year.

Plenković recalled that the government was holding sessions outside of Zagreb, that meetings were held with county heads and that the Council for Slavonia held meetings as well. "The government's presence across the country is very concrete, project-oriented, useful and continual. We can say that we have developed a methodology which seems favourable to counties, cities, municipalities and other parts of Croatia."

Speaking about projects in Rijeka, he mentioned infrastructure, tourism and cultural projects. "Rijeka has been developing excellently and the government supports all projects, whether new or old ... and the government's partnership policy will continue," said the prime minister.

Šibenik-Knin County head and Croatian Association of Counties head Goran Pauk thanked the government for implementing principles of partnership, open cooperation and support in contacts with local government officials. Pauk believes that the planned transfer of state administration duties to counties will simplify and rationalise future processes and increase citizens' satisfaction.

Over the past few years we have taken over numerous tasks and duties from the state and the general impression is that we perform them more efficiently and in a more organised way because we are closer to citizens and know their priorities and needs, said Pauk.

Primorje-Gorski Kotar County head Zlatko Komadina welcomed the fact that the meeting was taking place in Rijeka, noting that the survival of the local shipbuilding industry was the most important issue for the county at the moment.

Rijeka Mayor Vojko Obersnel, too, spoke about the survival of the shipbuilding industry and called for finding a solution to help shipbuilding survive both in Rijeka and in Pula.

After the government's meeting with county heads, an agreement was signed in Rijeka on a 20 million grant kuna for the Public Administration Ministry for a project to optimise the system of local and regional government. The project is designed to establish a single database for local government units and define a grading system based on different criteria.

The system will help determine which local government units perform well and which do not. Based on that, measures for the improvement of their work will be defined and the system will later possibly give guidelines for a possible reduction of the number of municipalities and towns.

For more on the local administration system, visit our Politics section.

ZAGREB, November 26, 2018 - A round table on the constitutional role of the President of the Republic in public and political life in Croatia was held in Zagreb on Monday, featuring former presidents Stjepan Mesić and Ivo Josipović, as well as the leader of the opposition Civic Liberal Alliance (GLAS), Anka Mrak Taritaš.

Mrak Taritaš said that the incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović had turned out to be "fake news". "At the time of the election, she appeared quite democratic, while today she is completely different. We have to draw a lesson from this," the GLAS leader said, adding that the current president had only seen her own role through approval ratings and had been campaigning since the start of her term in office.

Mrak Taritaš said that whenever Grabar-Kitarović went on a trip somewhere, she was "ashamed for her", because, unlike her predecessors Josipović and Mesić, the decisions she made were "leading Croatia backwards."

The GLAS leader said it was vitally important that the opposition field a joint candidate for the next presidential election a year from now "to stand up to this madness of populism." For her, the best candidate would be someone from the political centre, "neither from the far left nor from the far right, with political eros and a clear personality to stop the presidential role being reduced to the level of show-business, which has been introduced by Grabar-Kitarović."

Mrak-Taritaš said that the opposition candidate should be a man to avoid the campaign turning into a "who has a better dress or longer eyelashes" contest. "There are important, crucial moments, and I think this is one such moment, when one should put one's ego aside and concentrate on the goal of winning the presidential election," she said.

Mesić and Josipović spoke of their experience during their presidential terms, with Mesić saying that the most difficult decision he had made was when he sent 12 generals into retirement after they presented "a political pamphlet" in the media. "The gist of that pamphlet was: 'We have successfully defended Croatia, we will decide what will happen in it.' That's why I had to react by ordering their retirement and I think I did the right thing," Mesić said.

Josipović said that his most difficult task was to mend relations with neighbours, because when he took office relations with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were very bad. He recalled that his first official trip abroad was to Bosnia and Herzegovina where he managed to take representatives of the country's main ethnic groups, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, to war crimes sites to pay respects to the victims.

When Josipović returned to Zagreb, he encountered the dissatisfaction of the government and generals, but an opinion poll showed that 75 percent of the public supported his speech in Sarajevo. Soon, he also managed to establish good relations with Serbian president Boris Tadić, even though Tadić had refused to attend Josipović's inauguration over Croatia's recognition of Kosovo.

"Unfortunately, it has turned out that something done in one term in office is not forever. I think that Croatia's present policy towards neighbours is wrong," Josipović said, noting that he was not considering running for president again.

Josipović said he was strongly opposed to the idea of the President of the Republic being elected in parliament. "It's very important not to keep all eggs in the same basket, especially in our cryptopresidential system. We have an almighty prime minister who decides about everything. The President should not be given new powers, but should operationalise the existing ones. In times of crisis, it is important for the President to be independent, and that is possible only if he or she is elected directly," he said.

Josipović said that if he were the President, he would go to the Marrakesh conference next month, adding that he could not see why Croatia was afraid of taking in refugees. He said that those were "the fears of the narrow-minded nationalist right."

Mesić said that he, too, thought that the President should not be elected directly for some time, because if he or she were elected by parliament, the ruling parties would be able to dictate how the President should use his or her powers.

"We need a President, but not one in a checkerboard jersey. Imagine if I had barged into a women's locker room, everyone would have said they I have gone mad," Mesić said. He criticised the current president's policy of dislocating her office to different towns as nonsense.

Mesić called for putting a stop to the glorification of fascism and WWII-era Ustasha ideology in the country. "Antifascist monuments are being knocked down, while government ministers are attending funerals for Ustashas with honours. They are currying favour with Ustasha sympathisers to win elections. We are the only nation in the world that wants to join the losers' camp."

For more on the Croatian politics, click here.

ZAGREB, September 15, 2018 - The GONG election monitoring nongovernmental organisation on Saturday organised a round table discussion on ways to find balance between direct and representative democracy, and among the topics discussed were also recent referendum campaigns aimed at changing the election law and annulling the ratification of the Istanbul Convention.

ZAGREB, May 23, 2018 - President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović has said that Croatians today have their own state but that they do not have a society of prosperity, and that a moral renaissance is needed as well because the system does not treat everyone the same way, which is what young people feel and because of which they are emigrating.

ZAGREB, May 18, 2018 - Parliament on Friday included a motion by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for parliament to be dissolved. The SDP claims that, in the wake of former deputy prime minister Martina Dalić's resignation, circumstances have emerged for citizens to be allowed to go to a snap election and decide on a new parliament which will elect a new government.

Croatia is listed as one of three countries in which far-right views are becoming mainstream.

Saša Pavlić is protesting against government’s spending priorities.

After the Easter holidays, a lot of decisions will have to be made.

For the first time ever, the Catholic Church has crossed a line and become directly involved in conflicts within a political party.