SDP president is confident that his party will form the next government.
SDP president Zoran Milanović gave an interview to RTL on Sunday evening in which he voiced his confidence that, after the forthcoming parliamentary elections, his People’s Coalition will form a government, reports RTL on September 5, 2016.
“Grand coalition with HDZ will not be necessary because the People’s Coalition already is a grand coalition. Never before in parliamentary elections did we have such a wide coalition”, said Milanović when asked whether the grand coalition of SDP and HDZ was possible after the elections. He denied speculation there were pressures from international factors on him to form the grand coalition. “International factors do not exist, and these decisions are made in Zagreb”, he said.
He commented on the conditions that MOST set for possible cooperation. “These are the same issues which we talked about last year. There is nothing new, we should just have to see whether there is anything that is inconsistent with our membership in the EU. But, let us first wait for the results of the elections and then we will see”, said Milanović. MOST’s terms are democratization of Croatian political and electoral system, changes to the financing of political parties, the proclamation of an exclusive economic zone in the Adriatic Sea, changes to foreclosure laws, amendments to the law on Croatian Radio Television, changes to the law on salaries in local and regional self-government units, and abolition of some company taxes.
Milanović also said that last year after the elections SDP had agreed everything with MOST, but they eventually decided to form a government with HDZ and its president Tomislav Karamarko. Asked why they were so lenient in negotiations with MOST at the time, he said they “considered it important to continue with reforms”, since current positive economic trends were the result of his government’s work.
Asked why he opposed the extradition of former security services leaders Josip Perković and Zdravko Mustać to Germany, who were in the meantime convicted for taking part in the assassination of Croatian emigrant Stjepan Đureković in the 1980s, Milanović said that he was opposed to “violence against Croatia”. “I opposed the idea of extraditing our citizens, even if they were ‘killers’ who were earlier protected by HDZ”, said Milanović.
Asked about the latest affair with the arrest of an alleged Croatian spy in Serbia, Milanović said that the Serbian government was behaving as if it had founded the European Union, and as if they did not sow hatred and committed war crimes in Croatia during the 1990s. “I go to Jasenovac and talk about the crimes of the Independent State of Croatia, and then I have to listen to Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić saying that Croats are the Ustashe. Enough with that”, he said.
