“Entrepreneurs have reason to protest, that is their legitimate right and we support them in that regard… the SDP has been saying ever since the beginning of the crisis that there is a lack of systematic care for them and I’m talking here about both health and economic measures,” Ahmetović told reporters in the parliament in a comment on the UGP’s protest against what it described as inadequate economic measures and discriminatory decisions against a part of entrepreneurs in the context of the coronavirus crisis.
The SDP MP said that there was no “streetlight that would indicate that measures for the protection of public health will be accompanied by economic measures and that businesses whose operation has suffered damage because of it will be able to offset the lack of revenue caused by those measures.”
Ahmetović also noted that anti-epidemic measures were adopted on an ad hoc basis and were contradictory.
MP comments on border incident
She also commented on a border incident caused last weekend by Italian members of the European Parliament from the Socialists group.
She said that the SDP “has always respected Croatian laws and the Croatian borders” but “has always been against police repression.”
“Are we going to crack the whip on members of the European Parliament and what about the purportedly friendly relations between Plenković and the European Commission in the context of this so-called incident,” she asked.
She dismissed interpretations that the SDP had made a mistake by supporting the Italian MEPs who wanted to illegally cross Croatia’s border into Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The SDP does not support them nor does it defend the attempt to illegally cross the border and no SDP official has made such a statement, she said.
“The reaction of the police to what was a peaceful atmosphere and attempt by those people to obtain information was a little weird. Indeed, Croatian laws must be respected and it’s crazy to even ask if the SDP is in favour of respect for Croatian laws, let alone the border,” the MP said.
