ZAGREB, 14 May 2022 - An event was held in Vukovar on Saturday to mark the 100th birth anniversary of Croatia's first president Franjo Tuđman, with speakers at the event saying that the current state leadership and Zagreb city authorities disregard the role of the late president.

Vukovar Mayor and Homeland Movement leader Ivan Penava, historian Josip Jurčević, the late Croatian president's advisor, former justice minister and member of parliament, Bosiljko Mišetić, and academician Josip Pečarić spoke about Tuđman at the event.

Jurčević said that the more "Tuđman is de-Tuđmanised, the greater symbolic importance he has."

Pečarić believes that the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU) treats Tuđman the same way the state does, with his membership of HAZU being regularly passed over.

Penava said that if the Homeland Movement had been consulted on how Tuđman's 100th birth anniversary should be commemorated, celebrations would be taking place across the country.

"Institutions, kindergartens, schools, research and other institutions would be discussing Tuđman's 100th birth anniversary the whole day. Military aircraft would be flying over Zagreb in his honour, instead of Macron's, as seen a few weeks ago," said Penava.

Commenting on Tuđman's younger son Stjepan's failure to attend the Vukovar event, Penava said that due to disappointment with events surrounding the 100th anniversary of his father's birth, Stjepan Tuđman decided to stay in Zagreb and visit with his family Veliko Trgovišće, where his father was born, as well as attend Mass in Zagreb.

Penava said that the state leadership and the Zagreb city authorities' treatment of the Tuđman family was the best proof of the authorities' attitude toward Tuđmanism, sovereignism and to Croatia as created by Tuđman and defenders in 1991.

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ZAGREB, 29 Jan 2022 - Homeland Movement (DP) leader Ivan Penava said in Osijek on Saturday that this year's sowing in Croatia would be the most expensive ever and that it would result in the collapse of the national farm sector and citizens' living standards.

"The government is ignoring the problem and is late in responding," Penava told a news conference.

A member of the DP Agriculture Committee, Darko Dimić, said that the coming pre-sowing fertilisation would be a number of times more expensive than last year.

Talks with farmers have shown that they will reduce the use of artificial fertilisers by 25-50%, which will result in a drop in yields and their quality, Dimić said.

Asked by reporters to comment on an increase in the number of deaths in 2021 in relation to the 2015-2019 average, Penava said the incumbent government did not concern itself with demography just as previous governments had not.

As for a reporter's remark that Vukovar and Vukovar-Srijem County had lost the largest number of residents, according to preliminary results of the 2021 census, Penava said that it was true when one spoke about relative percentages but that Osijek-Baranja County was the one to have lost the largest number of inhabitants.

"I have been saying for ten years that Vukovar does not have 27,000 inhabitants, which is the number from 2011, but 22,000. This census will prove that we were right and that the number was exaggerated," Penava said, noting that Serbs did not account for almost 35% of Vukovar's population.

"I have been saying for years that the only one who benefits from that percentage is the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), because the number of its councillors (in the Vukovar city council) and its income from the city budget as well as its other rights depend on it," said Penava, who is also Mayor of Vukovar.