ZAGREB, June 19, 2020 – The state should equip the Croatian Air Force with something new and state of the art because what we have now has given its best, President and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Zoran Milanovic said on Friday in the Zemunik airbase.
Attending a ceremony presenting pilot flight badges to cadets in the 24th generation of Air Force pilots, President Milanovic said that each commander is as great as much as he cares for his people and “doesn’t treat them as cannon fodder.”
“If we raise that to the level of the state, our state should, I believe it will, invest funds and simply supply the Air Force with something more modern and new because what we have at the moment has given its best, it completed a sort of historic mission more than 20 years ago,” he said.
A state and people who safeguard their values aren’t afraid of costs
We know how procurement went and now it’s time for new times. “And that costs but a state and people who know what they have and know how to safeguard their values will not be afraid of those costs and will take them, he added.
Asked about the procurement of new fighter jets, Milanovic said that that is the consensus in Croatian political life but when asked at what stage it was, he said, “at the beginning.”
I supported lifting rigorous epidemiological measures
Commenting on the increase in the number of people infected with the novel coronavirus on Thursday, Milanovic said that he “supported lifting and abolishing those rigorous measures.”
“We can never go back to that sort of lockdown. That was a reaction to something new, threatening. We will have to protect the elderly and ill,” he said.
Reporters asked Milanovic about the investigations into two aircraft accidents at the Zemunik airbase.
“If the investigation is going to be proper, it will be independent. Particularly these investigations in which no one is inclined to cover up anything, or steer the investigation in a certain direction and to desired conclusions. Investigations take time and they are especially rigorous for air accidents,” he concluded.
