ZAGREB, February 6, 2018 – Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Tuesday he had not known about the fees of the consultants for the restructuring of the Agrokor group, adding that he did not support their amounts, that he would give his assessment after examining a report from Agrokor emergency administrator Ante Ramljak and that, in the Agrokor case, the government had done the only right decision by adopting a law on emergency administration in systemic companies.
He was responding to questions from Croatian reporters covering his visit to Strasbourg after a European Parliament plenary session. They asked him if he had seen Ramljak’s report, if the consultants’ salaries were too high and if he saw anything contentious in the fact that some had worked in the company in which Ramljak used to work.
“In my decisions, I will look at the big picture and I will analyse this specific question in great detail, because I think that’s my key responsibility as the prime minister and the person who… has taken on the entire political burden of this process,” Plenković said, referring to the restructuring of the indebted food and retail group.
He said he had not known about the consultants’ fees, recently published by the media. “Generally, I can say that’s not good.”
He added that what was essential to him was that, “as the crisis in the biggest Croatian company has dominated the political, economic and media spheres” over the past year, “we made the only possible, right and key move” by adopting the law on emergency administration in companies of systemic importance.
Plenković reiterated that the government’s intention had been to protect Croatia’s state interests, jobs, the economy, and suppliers, notably small and medium-sized ones.
“I think we have been steering this process very well. We have managed to pay all small suppliers, those up to 5.2 million kuna, which wouldn’t have been done without such special legislation. Classic insolvency law wouldn’t have made it possible, this law has,” he said, adding that now “we are at the stage of reaching a final agreement, the settlement stage.”
