MP Željko Glasnović published an agreement which he has signed with the Prime Minister in order to support HDZ’s candidate for Parliament Speaker.
Independent MP Željko Glasnović did not support HDZ’s Finance Minister yesterday, saying he did not want to be a useful idiot for anyone. However, today he has provided the crucial vote which enabled HDZ to prove that it had the majority in the Parliament, at least with regards to the election of Parliament Speaker, reports Index.hr on May 5, 2017.
In an attempt to demonstrate why he changed his mind, Glasnović published on his Facebook profile his demands which the Prime Minister had accepted and signed. The first demand is payment of debts to former members of HVO (Bosnian Croat forces during the 1990s war in Bosnia and Herzegovina), which would probably happen even without Glasnović, given that the Croatian Pension Insurance Fund announced in April that it would pay 190 million kuna which the state owes for pensions for about 5,000 former HVO members and their families.
The second demand is to speed up the procedure for adoption of the new Law on Croatian War Veterans, which the government initially announced for January. Glasnović has long advocated for the idea of equalising the rights of veterans of HVO and of the Croatian Army. Croatia already pays pensions to about 7,000 HVO members, but the government is now preparing a law that would increase their benefits and equalise them with veterans of the Croatian Army. Estimates published in the media put the amount of funds needed from several hundred million kuna a year to four billion kuna.
Veterans’ Affairs Minister Medved has argued that the estimates in billions are not realistic, because some of the rights would be over time settled by an annex to an agreement with Bosnia and Herzegovina and that this year the amount paid to HVO members would increase by just 200 million kuna. Former Veterans’ Affairs Minister Fred Matić (SDP) said at the time that “this amount would not be enough even just for coffee and sandwiches.” HDZ’s minister later said he did not want to speculate and that the amount to be paid to HVO members would depend on the final draft of the bill.
HDZ has promised to permanently solve the status of former HVO members. On the other hand, it has also promised it would respect fiscal responsibility principle, which means that one of these two promises will not be fulfilled. Prime Minister Plenković’s signature reveals which one might prevail.
