ZAGREB, 6 July 2022 - The ruling HDZ party's coalition partners said on Wednesday that the resigned Finance Minister Zdravko Marić was one of the most successful ministers who had led Croatia into the euro area and who had results, with just an occasional mistake. 

Speaking to reporters ahead of a meeting of parties making up the parliamentary majority, Reformists leader Radimir Čačić said that Marić had done his job excellently and had results to show.

Čačić: Number of excellent results, guarantees a failure

"His results are entry to the euro area, the country's improved credit rating and debt stabilisation, which is very important. However, he also made big mistakes, such as the billions of kuna spent on guarantees for shipyards. He obviously could not say no to that," he said.

Speaking of Marić's successor Marko Primorac, Čačić said that he lacked experience in the private sector, which could pose a problem.

"The new minister understands public finance but he has no experience in the real sector. It is one thing to read about football, and another to play it," he said.

Hrebak: Politicians are not robots

HSLS leader Dario Hrebak said that there was nothing mysterious about Marić's departure.

"If he feels that he has done his best, that there are no more challenges, that his ambitions have been fulfilled, then his move is responsible. Marić has kept the financial system stable, weathered all crises so far and in a few months we will be joining the euro are," Hrebak said, commending the minister for tax reforms, which, he said, made him the country's best finance minister.

"But politicians are not robots, they have emotions and plans. He has been doing a very responsible job for more than six years for a salary that is 4-5 times lower than what he could have earned," he said, noting that Marić's successor would have enough time to acquaint himself with the system and prepare for the challenges expected in autumn.

Čuraj: Personal, family reasons 

The HNS party leader and state secretary at the Finance Ministry, Stjepan Čuraj, said that he believed the reasons why Marić had resigned were personal and had to do with his family.

He noted that the finance minister's job was not very rewarding and that the salary did not match the amount of responsibility.

Six years is a long period, he has made results and has something to leave behind, Čuraj said, adding that the new minister was an expert and that he had operational experience as a member of supervisory bodies.

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ZAGREB, 3 June 2021 - President Zoran Milanović on Thursday called Prime Minister Andrej Plenković a promoter of the right to lie who had now classified himself "under authentic interpreters of battles from the Homeland War" and declared himself "almost a war commander".

The president wrote this on Facebook, reacting to Plenković's comment on his proposal that the anniversary of the Croatian military and police Operation Storm be commemorated in other cities besides Knin.

Milanović accused Plenković of "denigrating the proposal to commemorate Operation Storm in other cities in which heroic battles were fought in the Homeland War, and not only in Knin, declaring himself - with the words 'many of us look at Knin differently' - almost a war commander," Milanović wrote.

The president added that the initiative to commemorate Operation Storm "also where hundreds of Croatian defenders were killed, near Petrinja and Glina, for instance, was proposed to him by war generals and commanders who fought liberation battles".

Asked by the RTL commercial broadcaster to comment on President Zoran Milanović's proposal to commemorate anniversaries of the Croatian military and police Operation Storm in Knin every five years and to commemorate the anniversary in Glina this year, Plenković said on Wednesday he didn't know about it, but he found "the repeated use of double criteria particularly indicative".

"He constantly talks about Knin as some kind of train station, a barracks. Many of us look at Knin differently, at its role, at Zvonimir's City, at the Knin Fortress, at the symbolism of the flag at the Knin Fortress. Those are different views," Plenković said, referring to the turbulent history of that Dalmatian region.

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