ZAGREB, Aug 3, 2019 – In an interview with Croatian Radio on Friday, President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović welcomed the tax reform, but said she was disappointed with it to some extent.
She said that she had expected greater tax reliefs for all categories whose income could have been increased “with other measures.”
The president said that priorities could have been ordered a little better in the fourth round of the tax reform. “I advocate decreasing the tax burden on entrepreneurs and increasing workers’ incomes,” she said.
Grabar-Kitarović said she was unhappy that the recent government reshuffle did not include the Health Ministry. “The labour drain is due to working conditions and not wages. The situation in the health sector is perhaps not disastrous but it is truly in a very poor state and almost nothing has been done in the past three years. I am sorry that the Health Ministry wasn’t included in the last government reshuffle,” she said.
Asked whether she would uphold an opposition call for an extraordinary session of parliament to debate a vote of no confidence in Health Minister Milan Kujundžić, the president said she would not interfere in that.
She explained that her primary role is to ensure the stability of institutions. “This is a matter of the health sector functioning and I think that we need a good manager here who can, but need not be a physician and that objections by medical staff have to be taken seriously,” Grabar-Kitarović underscored.
Asked when she would officially announce her bid for a second term as president, Grabar-Kitarović said that that would certainly be after the celebrations for Victory Day and the anniversary of Operation Storm.
She considers that the fall in the Croatian Democratic Union’s (HDZ) approval ratings over the past six months has not affected her rating because she is a non-partisan who comes from that party.
The president said that she would like to go to a concert by Marko Perković Thompson in Split, and welcomed the fact that he called on the public to only wear insignia of the victorious Croatian army because the Homeland War is the foundation of modern Croatia.
“I think I would like to stop by his concert. I have never hidden that fact and I have already attended some of his concerts,” she said.
Commenting on bilingual signs in Vukovar, Grabar-Kitarović said that they can be put up when the war wounds, which are still visible at every step, have healed.
“I support Vukovar Mayor Ivan Penava because we are all human. On the one hand his job is extremely difficult because he is trying to ensure justice for all, and we haven’t faced up to the crimes that occurred there from Borovo Selo onwards,” said the president.
She added that the judiciary was still waiting, yet she would like to see it embark on resolving war crimes.
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