ZAGREB, Nov 3, 2020 – PM Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday that his government did have a strategy to fight coronavirus and that it was yielding results, noting that the opposition Social Democratic Party was challenging the constitutionality and legality of the government’s and the COVID-19 response team’s work.
“We do have a strategy and it is yielding results. The Opposition wants to impose on us the topic of a curfew and an extremely restrictive lockdown with the clear political agenda of criticising us already tomorrow that we have additionally restricted human rights or have caused even bigger economic or financial damage,” Plenkovic told reporters in the parliament, adding that the government would not fall for that or make the mistakes someone would want it to make.
He underlined that since February the SDP had been challenging the constitutionality and legality of the government’s and the COVID-19 response team’s actions.
“That operation is still underway and some still regret that the Constitutional Court did not rule as they had hoped it would,” he said.
He added that the SDP’s second goal was to question the government’s ability to secure the necessary protective equipment for the health system, noting that his government was the one to secure that equipment, including through his direct talks with the Chinese prime minister.
Plenkovic also recalled that the SDP had announced an economic collapse, the loss of jobs and the collapse of the budget.
“Unlike them, we, who do not ‘have a strategy’, have invested HRK 8.1 billion to retain jobs in the private sector… and we have provided financing for companies to weather this difficult economic situation, through HBOR or HAMAG,” he said, adding that the government had also made it possible for civil servants and public sector workers to continue receiving their wages and pensioners to continue receiving pensions.
We have made it possible for the budget to function and secured a financial lever for Croatia for the next ten years in the amount of €24.2 billion, said the PM.
Asked to comment on today’s protest of medical staff at Zagreb’s KB Dubrava hospital, which has been converted into a COVID-19 hospital, Plenkovic said that the hospital had been converted into a hospital for coronavirus patients because it was the best and most modern hospital in Zagreb, with the best technical conditions.
He said that he did not believe that conditions in the hospital are inhumane and noted that he had asked Health Minister Vili Beros to investigate the situation and report back to him.
