ZAGREB, May 25, 2018 – Prime Minister Andrej Plenković told the press after a meeting of the main committee of his HDZ party on Thursday evening that lawyer Boris Šavorić had been invited by the government in 2017 and had accepted the invitation in good faith to help in the Agrokor case.
Šavorić was involved in the drafting of the law concerning the indebted Agrokor food and retail conglomerate and served for a while as an adviser to the former government-appointed emergency administrator of Agrokor.
Plenković said he had not invited the lawyer personally. The prime minister was asked whether he could confirm the claim by the leader of the opposition MOST party Božo Petrov that lawyer Boris Šavorić had come to the government as a person enjoying the prime minister’s confidence.
Petrov has told the Večernji List newspaper that Šavorić had been brought to the government by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. “The key question is who is saying this. Božo Petrov is obviously speaking creatively,” Plenković told reporters.
Plenković recalled that it was a time of a looming crisis at Agrokor and that lawyers were engaged along with economic and financial experts. “The drafting of the law was not discussed. I think Mr Šavorić came in good faith to help in the process. I didn’t call him personally, he was called by the government,” Plenković said.
The HDZ’s main committee unanimously adopted a draft of the party’s new statue ahead of its convention on Saturday.
Plenković said that the convention would bring together about 2,000 delegates, adding that he did not expect any “dissonant tones” because the HDZ had behind it two years of victories and successes at parliamentary and local elections.
He commented on the move by two Social Democratic Party (SDP) lawmakers to report him to the Conflict of Interest Commission over the Agrokor affair. “It is their right and it is part of the political match we have been watching lately,” Plenković said, adding that now it was up to the Commission to decide whether or not it would take action.
