ZAGREB, October 2, 2019 – The Croatian parliament on Wednesday passed a set of 61 laws to streamline state administration, under which state administration offices would be abolished and their duties taken over by counties.
The laws were aligned with the State Administration Act which provides for all state administration offices, except the administrative and sports inspectorates, to be abolished and their duties assigned to counties.
Counties will thus be put in charge of about 200 additional proceedings, and so far, they had nearly three times fewer. They will also take charge of about 2,000 staff, which will bring their total staff to about 4,200.
Of 2,500 state administration staff, about 500 have opted for severance pay, for which purpose 150 million kuna (20 million euro) will be secured.
A total of 96 assistant ministers will lose the status of government officials and their positions will be filled by heads of directorates for four-year terms.
The Ministry of Administration says that the planned changes will streamline the state administration system and save between 30 million kuna (4.05 million euro) and 40 million kuna (5.4 million euro).
Parliament rejected an amendment put forward by the Social Democratic Party (SDP), under which members of the European Parliament and the European Commission would have been included among office holders subject to the Conflict of Interest Prevention Act.
SDP lawmakers used the amendment to again raise the issue of the property holdings of the Croatian candidate for European Commission Vice-President, Dubravka Šuica of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). The ensuing debate escalated into personal accusations and insults being exchanged between SDP and HDZ deputies.
Branko Bačić (HDZ) said that the government remained open to the SDP’s proposal, saying that Šuica’s declaration of assets had been made public while she had held office in Croatia and that there had never been any issues at that time.
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