ZAGREB, 15 Feb 2022 - Economy Minister Tomislav Ćorić said on Tuesday that in 2019, as minister of environmental protection and energy, he had in no way favoured investors in the Krš-Pađene wind park who are under investigation by the USKOK anti-corruption office, of which he has been accused by a former assistant.

"I inherited the Krš-Pađene case in 2017 when I took the office of minister of environmental protection and energy, and after several consultations with the State Attorney's Office, we solved that case at the ministry in 2017," Ćorić told the press.

He said the ministry's decision was upheld by the Constitutional Court and the High Administrative Court and that it was the last decision by the ministry that had legal effect in that case.

Ćorić said that he had in no way influenced an opinion issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Energy in 2009.

He said he would be available to the authorities "at any moment" and answer all their questions concerning Krš-Pađene, and that since the case was under investigation, he could not say more.

According to the Telegram web portal, Ćorić's former assistant Domagoj Validžić, one of the persons USKOK suspects of having favoured the investors in the wind park, claims he did it at Ćorić's request and that the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Energy, which Ćorić ran at the time, gave a positive opinion on the wind park even though, USKOK contends, the investors had not met all the requirements.

According to the media, Validžić told USKOK investigators that Ćorić had asked him to meet the investors' demands.

Telegram says Validžić told investigators that Ćorić had asked him about a letter from the investors and that he concluded that the minister had received "some information from the other side and that the letter existed and that it would be sent to the ministry."

Ćorić also wanted to know who at the ministry was in charge of a document that had to be drawn up for the investors, the media say. When Validžić told him it was Zoran Pačandi, head of the energy department, Ćorić allegedly said that Pačandi should be "relieved of some tasks so that he can hurry up that document" and that "the ministry's response should be positive for the investors."

The media say that Ćorić asked Validžić to send him the ministry's response via email before sending it to the investors and that Validžić gave the email to the investigators. Validžić reportedly told investigators that the letter was sent to the investors with the state secretary's signature.

According to the media, Validžić relayed his talks with Ćorić to Pačandi and that draft opinions were usually not sent to the minister.

The government sacked Validžić in April 2021 when USKOK started investigating him for abuse of office to the benefit of CEMP, a company owned by Milenko Bašić. According to USKOK, the opinion whereby the investors' demands were met was made only based on the law on renewables, while regulations on obtaining preferential electricity producer status were disregarded.

USKOK suspects Validžić disregarded those regulations so that he could favour CEMP in agreement with Josipa Rimac, the then Public Administration Ministry state secretary and a former mayor of Knin.

USKOK's investigation has covered Validžić, Rimac, Bašić as well as Krunoslav Jakupčić, former president of the Board of the Hrvatske Šume forest management company; Dragan Stipić, executive director of Bašić's Lager company; Ivan Melvan, a former Hrvatske Šume executive; and Tomislav Jureković, a former director of the HERA energy regulator.

Also reported were former Gračac mayor Nataša Turbić, former Knin town councillor Marinko Tokmačija, former assistant economy minister Ana Mandac, former Agriculture Ministry chief of staff Ružica Njavro, and entrepreneurs Josip Ravlić, Ante Sladić and Nikola Lapčić.

ZAGREB, 1 Feb 2022 - President Zoran Milanović has met with representatives of the Dutch company Green Trust who presented the Lički Medvjed wind park project, the president's office said on Tuesday.

Green Trust is preparing the project together with the German partner Enercon near Otočac.

This wind park is the biggest such project in Croatia at the moment and the investment is planned at €500 million, Green Trust executives said.

The wind park's capacity will be 425 megawatts and annual production one terawatt-hours of green energy.

Besides creating jobs, the wind park plans to assist local sustainable projects and initiatives, Green Trust representatives said, adding that they plan to set up a fund which will support, with €200,000 a year, sustainable local projects aimed at improving economic, social and ecological conditions.

The construction of the wind park will help to improve the infrastructure in the Otočac area as the implementation of the project requires building 25 km of road and investing in a new high-voltage grid.

ZAGREB, November 6, 2020 - Parliament will debate the Homeland Movement's interpellation on the government's work in connection with the Krs-Padjene wind park project on Tuesday, Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic announced on Friday.

He said parliament would debate amendments to a revised 2020 state budget in the morning, then debate three bills, and begin a debate on the interpellation at 3 p.m. Voting will take place on Wednesday.

Parliament today added 13 items to the agenda, including a set of bills related to the fifth round of the tax reform and the interpellation submitted by the opposition Homeland Movement, which was backed by 20 other opposition MPs.

In the interpellation, they demand that the government submit to parliament all contracts and decisions concerning Krs-Padjene as well as all relevant decisions by the Energy and Environment Ministry and the Croatian Energy Regulatory Agency.

Citing calculations by experts they hired, the Homeland Movement claims that in 14 years Croatian consumers will pay HRK 2.2 billion more than they should under the price envisaged by law.

The government suggested that parliament reject the interpellation, while Economy Minister Tomislav Coric said all energy ministry decisions on the project from 2017 were adopted after consultation with the State Attorney's Office and that they were upheld in court in April 2019.

The Krs-Padjene project was launched in 2003 by an Austrian investor and taken over by the CEMP energy company in 2012. Institutions and ministries under a number of governments worked on it.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)

ZAGREB, June 30, 2020 - Non-governmental organisations Green Action and BIOM held a performance outside the Energy and Environment Ministry on Tuesday saying that Minister Tomislav Coric should hold to account for influence-peddling in the Krs-Padjen wind farm scandal.

"Minister Coric's political responsibility in the Krs-Padjen scandal is unquestionable and there are strong indications of his criminal responsibility for evidently unreasonable spending of public funds," the NGOs said.

They warned of multiple damages done as a consequence of Coric's political decisions. They claimed that the minister "in cahoots with the accused investors, has squandered HRK 1.2 billion of taxpayers' money, thus destroying our renewable future in the form of decentralised, local systems of renewable energy sources."

"Without Coric's decision, which contradicts expert opinion, the accused investors would not have been able to continue the project based on the old system of tariffs," Enes Cerimagic (Green Action) said. He claimed that HRK 1.2 billion in incentives more would have to be paid than the investor would have been entitled to under the new tariff system.

"Had Minister Coric abided by the law and asked for an assessment of the impact on the ecological network, the investor's approval to buy electricity at higher subsidised prices would have expired and the project would have been subject to the new tariff," Cerimagic said, adding that Coric thus caused multiple damages to the state, environment, nature and the budget.

Cerimagic said that the HRK 1.2 billion that has been squandered could have been sufficient for solar systems to supply 30,000 households."

ZAGREB, June 3, 2020 - Environment and Energy Minister Tomislav Coric on Tuesday commented on the wind park scandal, saying that after consultations with the Chief State Prosecutor's Office (DORH), it was decided to annul a decision on a new acceptability estimate for the Krs-Padjene wind park, thereby unblocking the project.

In May and June 2017, before I took the minister's office, consultations began with DORH on the matter, after which we embarked on annulling the decision from March in order to protect Croatia's interest and defend ourselves from potential lawsuits, Coric told reporters in Karlovac.

A potential lawsuit could have been filed by the investor to sue Croatia for damages that could have been incurred by the failure to realise the project, he said.

Staff from the ministry's legal and environmental protection departments consulted the deputy chief state prosecutor in July before a commission was established and the decision was annulled, Coric said, adding that in the meantime he exchanged e-mails with the then chief state prosecutor Dinko Cvitan and his deputies.

Asked why his predecessor Slaven Dobrovic did not do that, Coric said the reason was that during his 18 months in office, Dobrovic "did nothing about environmental protection and energy."

He added that Dobrovic's decision of March was subject to a lawsuit. He said the goal of the commission established in July 2017 was to protect Croatia's long term interests in this case.

Asked if it was customary for the executive authority to consult DORH, Coric said that in this case, it was necessary.

Given that the direction could have been problematic for Croatia, we contacted DORH. If we hadn't, I doubt I would have made such a decision, he added.

Coric went on to say that he met with the investor in the Krs-Padjene wind park, Milenko Basic, several times at the ministry in the company of his lawyers and that Basic informed him about his intentions.

I did not see that as pressure because, as the investor, he only presented his legal positions, Coric said, adding that he never discussed the project with Josipa Rimac, a former state secretary at the Public Administration Ministry arrested last week as part of a probe into the wind park project on suspicion of corruption.

Speaking of the Krs-Padjene wind park project, he said: "It's been completed, I don't know if entirely. I suppose incentives have started too." He added that it was private investment.

ZAGREB, June 1, 2020 - Agriculture Minister Marija Vuckovic, state-secretary in her ministry, Tugomir Majdak and deputy chief of staff in the prime minister's office, Tena Misetic will testify in the wind park scandal involving former state secretary Josipa Rimac, Hina heard from sources close to the probe.

Vuckovic, Majdak and Misetic will be questioned as witnesses because their names were mentioned during wiretapping of conversations Rimac, a former state secretary in the Administration Ministry until last week when she was dismissed after the scandal broke out.

According to sources with close knowledge of the investigation, Rimac allegedly mentioned Misetic in a conversation with Anton Sladic, a businessman from Sibenik, who is a suspect in the scandal. Rimac informed Sladic that Ruzica Njavro, chief of staff at the Agriculture Ministry, had allegedly contacted the prime minister's deputy chief of staff to accelerate the process and approve subsidies.

Rimac allegedly reminded Sladic to submit an application to the ministry along with Zagreb businessman Josip Ravlic, another suspect in the case, and that the ministry "would not be able to ignore the application because the caretaker government can adopt regulations."

Majdak is mentioned in the conversation between Rimac and Sladic in which Rimac, who used to be the mayor of Knin, allegedly said that Dean Zoran Grgic of the Faculty of Agronomy had spoken with Majdak and sent him an email in which he listed objections in an attempt to have the regulation on the lease of forest land, amended. The USKOK anti-corruption office claims that the amendments curried favour with Sladic.

At the motion of the USKOK anti-corruption office, a Zagreb County Court investigating judge on Saturday set one month's detention for Rimac and another six suspects in this case involving the construction of a wind park in the Dalmatian hinterland.

Detention was also set for Natasa Turbic, the ruling HDZ party's head of Gracac municipality, Njavro, Marinko Tokmacija, a Knin city councillor, and the businessman Sladic. They have been detained to prevent them from witness tampering. The judge dismissed USKOK's motion that the suspects be placed in custody also to prevent them from possibly repeating their crimes.

Detention was also set for C.E.M.P. company owner Milenko Basic and director Dragan Stipic, both of whom are beyond the reach of Croatian police.

Besides Rimac, Turbic, Njavro, Tokmacija, Sladic, Basic and Stipic, criminal reports were filed against Hrvatske Sume forest management company CEO Krunoslav Jakupcic, the head of its Split branch, Ivan Melvan, the head of the Croatian Energy Regulatory Agency, Tomislav Jurekovic, Zagreb businessman Ravlic, Knin businessman Nikola Lapcic and Ana Mandac, an assistant economy minister sacked last Friday.

ZAGREB, May 30, 2020 - Josipa Rimac, the Public Administration Ministry State Secretary who was fired on Friday, presented her defense to anti-corruption investigators but she did not answer any questions, and after spending the night in detention she could be taken to the investigating judge on Saturday, her lawyer said.

Lawyer Zeljko Gulisija told the HTV public broadcaster on Friday that his client could be taken to the investigating judge on Saturday if the anti-corruption office USKOK asked that she be remanded in custody.

Gulisija said that his client was "shocked by today's events" after earlier in the day she was arrested with 12 other persons, including the CEO of the state-owned Hrvatske Sume forest management company, Krunoslav Jakupcic, the HDZ mayor of Gracac, Natasa Turbic, and Assistant Economy Minister Ana Mandac, whom the government also dismissed on Friday.

Sources close to the investigation say that Rimac is suspected of influence peddling and receiving a bribe of €45,000 to favour the C.E.M.P. company, which built a wind park near Knin.

She is also suspected of exerting pressure on Hrvatske Sume to make it change its decision not to green-light the Krs-Padjane wind park, built by C.E.M.P.

USKOK believes that Hrvatske Sume CEO Krunoslav Jakupcic and Ivan Melvan of the company's branch in Split were the ones who eventually approved the wind park project in early 2020.

Jakupcic's attorney Vladimir Teresak said that his client had presented extensive defense and that he was charged with acting in line with Rimac's instructions.

He said that Teresak pleaded not guilty to the charges.

C.E.M.P. on Friday issued a statement dismissing allegations of illegal conduct in the project, claiming it could prove the lawfulness of its actions with existing documentation on the project.