Croatian Prime Minister responds to opposition comments likening him to Santa Claus.
“We shall see who is Santa Claus, and who is an agent of foreign banks”, said on Friday prime minister Zoran Milanović, responding to criticism by HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko that he was behaving like a “crazed Santa Claus” who is giving gifts before the elections to hold on to power, reports Jutarnji List on September 11, 2015.
“These are all measures that have been prepared for months, for the last year. I am not Santa Claus, but I am the Croatian prime minister and I intend to stay that. Of course, the citizens will decide, and we shall see who is Santa Claus, and who is an agent of foreign banks”, said Milanović in Slavonski Brod. He pointed out that Santa Claus was a pleasant character and that he was glad that Karamarko saw him like that.
HDZ president said on Thursday that Milanović is “behaving like a crazed Santa Claus, who is buying gifts with another people’s credit card, since he wants to hold on power after the parliamentary elections”. But, he warned, the owners of the card are the Croatian citizens who will pay for all of that.
Milanović also commented on media reports that Austria will seek the response of EU finance ministers due to the decision of the Croatian government that the problem of loans in Swiss francs should be resolved with the conversion of the loans into euros. “The Austrian minister is a Austrian minister, Lalovac is the Croatian minister. I like Austria, but I like Croatia much more”, he said.
Austrian finance minister has sent a letter to his Croatian counterpart Boris Lalovac, in which he expressed understanding for the need to address the problem of loans in francs, but thinks it is problematic that the entire cost will be borne by banks. “We will intervene at an informal meeting of Ecofin so that the finance ministers, the European Commission and the ECB can deal with this problem”, said the Austrian minister Hans Jörg Schelling, calling on minister Lalovac to open a dialogue with banks.
