Negotiations between MOST and the two main parties continue.
Negotiations between MOST, SDP and HDZ will be a lot longer than anticipated. MOST said that the first round of talks will be concluded on Wednesday (with the topics of education, finance and electoral system) and then the real negotiations will commence, reports Vecernji List on November 21, 2015.
According to unofficial sources, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović will not start consultations about the new prime minister-designate until Thursday, after MOST and other parties conclude the first round of talks. Are these negotiations just a farce, just a show for voters, and has MOST already made a deal with one of the other parties? Yesterday, journalists asked SDP negotiator Branko Grčić whether he feared that MOST and HDZ had already come to an agreement. “I hope that people from MOST have gained the impression that we are open and that we have a wealth of experience, knowledge and information, since we have run the country during the last four years”, Grčić said and again invited MOST to become the main partner in a new government of Zoran Milanović.
HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko also commented yesterday about the stories that everything has already been secretly agreed with MOST. “This story is being spread by someone with malicious intent, because otherwise we would not be having these negotiations”, Karamarko explained.
The fact that MOST sends a different negotiating team to each new round of negotiations suggests that they have no clear position. For the final decision to be made, there must be a meeting between the MOST National Council and all elected members of parliament. “The agreement of other parties in principle is worthless, we must have in writing what they are ready to do, and by when. So far, HDZ and SDP have more or less agreed on everything, which shows that there is a consensus on the necessary reforms, and we do not see why these parties reject the idea of a reform government”, Nikola Grmoja, one of the founders of MOST, said.
The second round of negotiations should include more detailed discussions, because it is obvious that MOST wants to have all the information about the current budget situation in ministries in order to know what is feasible. Also, the important issue of people who would be ministers in the new government still has not been even touched. From all this it is clear that the negotiations between the parties, as well as consultations with the President, will take some time.
MOST says that it would be foolish to hastily make any important decisions. “We will offer the idea of a reform government to the President and see whether she agrees”, Grmoja added. National Council of MOST and elected members of parliament will meet on Sunday to discuss the remaining negotiating topics and teams.
After yesterday’s negotiations with SDP’s coalition, MOST negotiator Ružica Vukovac said that she leaves the negotiations with excellent impressions. They have mostly talked about agriculture and the proposed establishment of an agricultural bank. Grčić has proposed that the Croatian Postal Bank should establish a special department for agriculture. Krunoslav Zmaić, president of HDZ’s Agricultural Committee, also expressed his satisfaction with the talks. “We have the same interest, including agriculture based on family farms, and there are also issues of agricultural land, direct payments and rural development.”
