ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - Post-earthquake reconstruction in Banovina has not stopped even once, 29 family houses are being built and next week the contractors for ten blocks of flats will be known, the head of the task force dealing with the aftermath of the 2020 earthquake, Tomo Medved, said in Petrinja on Saturday.

"At no moment has the reconstruction process been stopped or brought into question, despite all the circumstances cased by Russia's aggression on Ukraine," he told the press after a task force meeting which was attended for the first time by the new Construction Minister Ivan Paladina.

Medved said he was confident that reconstruction would intensify following Paladina's appointment and that citizens "waiting to return to their homes will be satisfied."

Paladina said he was detecting the obstacles to reconstruction and that they were being dealt with. Construction has begun on ten replacement houses and soon there will be 30, he added.

Sisak-Moslavina County prefect Ivan Celjak said the county had submitted 68 projects worth HRK 700 million to the Solidarity Fund, with 52 projects for the construction of 40 houses, 12 roads, 20 medical facilities, 11 schools and nine cultural facilities.

Asked by the press if a possible investigation into his previous activities was an aggravating circumstance, Paladina said he was focused on the work ahead.

Reporters asked Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milošević if he had become a burden to the post-earthquake reconstruction process due to a possible investigation into incentive allocations.

He said it was not a pleasant situation but that, as a public figure, he must be ready to deal with such a burden and that he would continue to contribute to the reconstruction process.

ZAGREB, Aug 5, 2020 - Foreign and European Affairs Minister Gordan Grlic Radman has said that the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Operation Storm in Knin was dignified and that the attendance of Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic of the Independent Democratic Serb Party was a turning point in relations between Croats and Serbs.

Speaking to reporters after the ceremony, held in Knin on Wednesday on the occasion of Victory Day and Homeland Thanksgiving and War Veterans Day, Grlic Radman said that the proposal for Milosevic's presence at the Knin ceremony had come from Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

Milosevic's arrival in Knin fantastic message to Serbia

"Finally, (Milosevic) is a citizen of Croatia. I think this is a turning point in our relations. Serbs are represented in the Croatian parliament, and I would describe this as a fantastic message to Serbia which should not be surprised but should welcome the fact that Serbs in Croatia regulate their issues with a democratically elected government," said Grlic Radman.

He noted that Milosevic's presence at today's ceremony in Knin could contribute to improving relations and resolving more outstanding issues as well as set an example for Serbia to turn to the future.

Grlic Radman described the Knin celebration as dignified, and addresses by top state officials as statesmanlike speeches.

Asked what kind of reception today's speeches by President Zoran Milanovic and Prime Minister Plenkovic could have in Serbia, Grlic Radman said that all the speeches at today's event were about inclusion, tolerance, future, reconciliation as well as the need to learn from the past.

Serbia owes answers about missing persons

Grlic Radman said that the war in Croatia had been imposed on the country and that in present-day Europe there was no room anymore for the policy of aggression.

"We advocate stability, peace, respect, tolerance. We expect to work on outstanding issues with Serbia," he said.

Speaking about people gone missing in the 1991-95 war who remain unaccounted for, the minister said that Serbia has a duty and obligation to give answers to their families.

"In order to achieve that, we have to talk with Serbia, it owes us answers," Grlic Radman said.

ZAGREB, Aug 3, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Sunday that Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic's attendance at the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Operation Storm in Knin this week was "a very useful and good thing".

"The fact that Milosevic will be in Knin on behalf of the SDSS (Independent Democratic Serb Party) is a very useful and good thing for Croatian society, for relations between the Croats and the Serb minority in Croatia, for relations between Croatia and Serbia, and it is also a good message that the modern, contemporary Croatia has completed all its national tasks," Plenkovic said in an interview with the public broadcaster HRT.

He said that Milosevic's attendance also showed the government's unity and the need to face what had happened in the past 30 years.

"Operation Storm is not only the most important victory in the Homeland War, but possibly in Croatian history as well. The operation was legally legitimate, militarily inevitable and politically necessary," the prime minister stressed.

"Our objective is to change relations in Croatian society and relations with our neighbours for the better, to put them in the right place and in the right temporal and historical context," he said when asked what kind of cooperation he expected with Serbia after August 5 given its criticism of Milosevic's decision.

"Twenty-five years have passed since the end of the war and 22 since the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube region. Croatia is a member of the EU and NATO. ... We consider this decision to be very good and positive, and I believe that with time Belgrade and the entire political scene will realise why this decision is important and why it is good, useful and the only one possible," Plenkovic said.

Medved's attendance at Grubori commemoration an important political gesture

Plenkovic said that the attendance of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Veterans' Affairs Tomo Medved at a commemoration in Grubori, scheduled for later this month to pay tribute to Serbs killed in that village by Croatian forces, was an important political gesture of the Croatian government.

"The fact that Tomo Medved, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Veterans' Affairs, a Croatian Army general, and the commander of the Tigers Brigade, is willing to go to Grubori to make a civilisational gesture on the government's behalf and pay tribute to the victims is an important political gesture of the Croatian government," he said.

"This is good and this is no trade-off. We are now transforming the relations and putting them on a sound basis. There is no political trade-off, we did not think about it or discuss it when we were forming the parliamentary majority. This is a normal course of events as we and I personally see them 25 years after Operation Storm," he added.

Plenkovic said he was pleased that General Ante Gotovina would also speak in Knin. "The fact that the general will speak there is very good for Croatia. We remember his messages after he returned from The Hague, when he said that the war is over and we should turn to the future. I am confident that he too shares the approach we have taken for the 25th anniversary of Operation Storm," Plenkovic said, stressing that all members of his cabinet would be in Knin on August 5.

He reiterated that the ethnic minorities should always be with the government and the governing majority. "They are part of our political heritage of the past 30 years and should make their contribution to Croatia's future. We will cooperate with the ethnic minorities, there is no political doubt about it, and I think it is good and useful."

Active autumn for government

Plenkovic said that the government was bracing for an active autumn, adding that the tax burden on private citizens and businesses would be further eased.

The tax reforms will enter into force on January 1, as has been the case before, and will represent the continuity of the policy to relieve the tax burden on the citizens and businesses, the PM said.

Speaking of the minimum wage and its increase, he said that a decision on this would be made by early November at the latest.

ZAGREB, Aug 1, 2020 - Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic said on Saturday that he will attend the August 5 commemoration of Operation Storm in Knin as a cabinet member, a Croatian Serb aware of the burden of the war legacy, because he believes the time has come to stop hatred and start building a culture of peace.

Writing on his Facebook page, Milosevic said he is going to Knin because he believes that 25 years after the war it is necessary to stop hatred and war which, unfortunately, for many is not over.

"Children of Serb ethnicity know this best because in their schools they have to endure stigma and feel the guilt just because they are Serbs," Milosevic said.

"I am going because I want to make their future easier. I am going because I think the time is ripe for a policy of understanding and respect to prevail over a policy of hatred," he added.

Milosevic said that during Operation Storm he had been in his native Sibenik, worrying about his father who had been mobilised as a Croatian army soldier, for his friends who were in the Croatian army, and for his relatives who were on the other side.

He said it was difficult for him to make this decision because of his personal family tragedy as his paternal grandmother had been shot dead from close range in the village of Bribirske Mostine in the wake of Operation Storm.

"The murderer was identified accidentally because of his own arrogance, believing that no one would investigate the murder of a Chetnik (Serb) woman, as he himself put it. He was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison and got out after 3.5 years following a presidential pardon," Milosevic wrote.

Milosevic said that Operation Storm is not just a military and police operation but also "an enormous collective trauma". For Croats, it is a symbol of the start of long-awaited peace and cessation of occupation, while for Serbs it is a trauma of an exodus, suffering, fear, uncertainty and the impossibility of returning to their homes.

He said he is aware that his attendance in Knin will not change the opposed views on Operation Storm among the majority on both sides, but that he is willing to accept any gesture aimed at promoting tolerance and mutual respect so that "we can confirm ourselves as a democratic society that can achieve co-existence and prosperity regardless of any differences, including those in interpreting our common past."

"Building an atmosphere of reconciliation and dialogue in which we as society must recognise and accept all the victims regardless of their ethnicity, is much more important than my presence in Knin," Milosevic said.

ZAGREB, July 26, 2020 - President Zoran Milanovic said on Sunday he would like to see Boris Milosevic, the deputy prime minister from the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), and its president Milorad Pupovac at the 25th anniversary of Operation Storm in Knin, which he said should be joy and not gloating over someone's defeat.

"It would be good, I'd like to see him there," the president said on N1 television when asked if it would be good for Milosevic to attend the military operation anniversary on August 5.

"I think that would be a gesture... Whether he will be capable of it, whether the colleagues from the SDSS have the stomach for it... They have a problem with it. In smaller portions of the Serb people that is seen as a disaster, as persecution and as genocide, yet the story is a little complicated and I think Croatia can be proud of how that was planned, how it was done. After that there were mistakes which we are aware of and for which a price was paid," the president said.

If he is booed at the anniversary as he was when he was prime minister, Milanovic said he did not know how he would react. He said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had started doing something about that and that one could no longer see in his vicinity "merry guys who come to provoke and act out."

Knin shouldn't be given the mythical significance

The president said that Knin, which became a local centre of the Serb rebellion in the 1990s by a combination of coincidences, should not be given mythical significance. "It's a small town with Zvonimir's Fortress and there is symbolism in that, but it's not a mythical place in the modern Croatian history," he said, adding that Operation Storm should be celebrated in Zagreb.

Milanovic welcomed the fact that Milosevic was part of the new government, but said it would be better if members of ethnic minorities who were in the government had some executive powers.

Asked why he did not attend the inauguration of the new parliament, he said one could likewise ask why he did not attend the new cabinet's first session given that it was a body he would cooperate with much more than with parliament.

"We don't have a tradition, we are creating it. In these changes, I won't be anyone's epigone."

EU money can't be used to solve budget problems

The president also spoke of the €22 billion the EU has earmarked for Croatia to recover from the COVID-19 crisis and financing over the next seven years. He said this money could not be used to solve budget problems when it was certain that the deficit would be huge.

"We are getting the money for development, for projects, and that should then generate new value, returning the money into the budget through taxes. The next year and a half will be very difficult because we will lack money. It needs to be taken somewhere," he said, adding that next year there would be no money to buy new fighter jets.

Speaking of the situation in the country caused by the coronavirus epidemic, the president reiterated that it had become a state of emergency but had not been aligned with the constitution.

"If that were done, I don't see the president playing a part, but the government and parliament. I can't say more or I'll become violent."

He reiterated that the national COVID-19 response team was not legally established and that it needed authority for the decisions it was making, and that parliament should play a key part in that.

"I warned the prime minister that people will sue the state because the decisions aren't legally founded. That team is a para-body. The Constitutional Court will have to decide on that."

If you don't go to the dentist, caries can spread to the heart

The president also spoke of his comparison of COVID-19 with caries. "The disease is dangerous, it's no joke, but I didn't compare it with caries without reason. Caries seems harmless, but if you don't take care of teeth hygiene every day, if you get caries and don't go to the dentist, it can spread to the heart. But generally, everything will be fine."

The coronavirus infection should be treated responsibly, daily, with concentration, by protecting seniors as nearly all who have died have been seniors, the president added.