Plenković: Šuica and Pejčinović Burić are sent to strengthen democracy in Europe
The opposition was quiet regarding nomination for Croatian candidate for European Commission (Dubravka Šuica for vice president with democracy and demography portfolio). But, they gave some statements for the print edition of today’s Jutarnji list. Davor Bernardić, leader of SDP (S&D) said that Dubravka Šuica is not “authoritative for that portfolio because 150.000 people left Croatia in the mandate of the government of her party, HDZ”. Anka Mrak Taritaš from party GLAS (liberal) emphasized that Dubravka Šuica was benevolent to Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban when he was attacking democracy.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenković was enthusiastic and highlighted the fact that from September 18th Croatia will have two women on two highest positions in Europe taking care about democracy: Dubravka Šuica as vice president of European Commission and Marija Pejčinović Burić as Secretary-General of Council of Europe. More on jutarnji.hr.
Božo Ljubić, MP of HDZ from BiH (Croatia has three MPs from the diaspora, all of them from BiH) called new Commission to follow the steps of European Parliament supporting federalisation of BiH.
Jutarnji list on its first page concluded: “One more victory for PM Plenković”, and Večernji list appealed: “Šuica has to give impetus to democracy and demography of EU”.
The clear conclusion: more than we expected, in line with government policy - and one of the serious societal problems - demography. But, a lot of people is not pleased with Dubravka Šuica as a candidate.
And there is Slovenian reaction: Milan Brglez, former speaker of the parliament, now MEP, said that he is very concerned because Zagreb got democracy portfolio. “Croatia does not respect European and international law”, he said, referring to Arbitration decision on the border between two states. Croatia stepped out of the arbitration process after evidence that Slovenia contaminated the process was presented to the public. More on delo.si.
Croatia and Multiannual financial framework
"It is very likely that the European Council meeting in October, which was to be dedicated to the Multiannual financial framework (MFF), will, after all, be dominated by Brexit. That's why these negotiations will likely be carried over to our presidency, and we will do our best to ensure that they are completed during the Croatian presidency in the first half of 2020," Andrej Plenković told the press. He added that the current EU president Finland would try to wrap up talks on theMFF in December, but that Helsinki considered it unlikely that an agreement would be reached then. Plenković did not rule out a possibility that Brexit would be a cause of problems during the Croatian presidency as well. He said that the situation was "almost grotesque", reiterating that Britain's departure from the EU was the consequence of "a huge mistake by the then Prime Minister David Cameron". Hina
Croatia and Israel cooperation on security
Deputy Prime Minister and of Minister of Interior Davor Božinović on Tuesday signed a cooperation agreement on public security in Tel Aviv with Israel's Minister of Public Security, Strategic Affairs and Information Gilad Erdan. Božinović explained that the agreement extends cooperation between intelligence agencies primarily between interior ministries in the area of cybersecurity and the exchange of officers and experts. The agreement defines the topics to be dealt with by relevant institutions, additional areas and forms of cooperation on
- public security
- fight against crime
- cybercrime
- witness protection
- exchange of information and personal data.
The cooperation between #Israel and #Croatia is continuing and getting even closer. We warmly welcome Minister Bozinovic and his delegation in #Israel. https://t.co/MM8DyX0afZ
— Ilan Mor (@AmbassadorMor) September 10, 2019
Božinović also signed a cooperation agreement with International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) executive director Boaz Ganor which will enable Croatian police officers to participate in innovative training programmes in the field of homeland security and in combating terrorism. Hina
Next Tuesday, September 17th, Croatian Ministry of Defence and Jutarnji list are organizing a conference on Homeland security and crisis management where minister Božinović will be one of the key speakers and we will have some experts from Israel as guests.
Medvedev asked Slovenia to help with Agrokor
- It would be good for the Slovenian government to get involved in solving the problems of Agrokor and Mercator, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday before the official talks with Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Šarec in Moscow. The Russian PM needed to emphasize that he had talked to Agrokor with the Croatian leadership, but that he was not satisfied with the talks. Agrokor is Croatian food producing and processing industry that collapsed but is saved with lex specialis. Now it is called Fortenova Group and biggest shareholders are Russian banks, VTB and Sberbank. Fortenova asked European Commission to allow incorporation of Mercator, a biggest retail chain in Slovenia (Agrokor bought it in 2014), but Ljubljana would like to get ownership of that company. Slovenia has much better relations with Russia than Croatia. More on novac.hr.
Fabris Peruško, CEO of Fortenova Group, in an interview published in today’s print edition of Jutarnji list, said that company is still facing over-indebtedness. He did not comment on Medvedev but said that Mercator will in few months became part of Fortenova.
With Kraš, Braća Pivac will be the biggest food processing company
The big story about Braća Pivac meat processing industry, its growth and offer to take over Kraš is in today’s print edition of Jutarnji list. With the takeover, Braća Pivac would have annual revenue of HRK 3,6 billion (€500 million). They would become the biggest food processing company if we do not include parts of Fortenova that are in the food processing business.
Croatian commercial banks have HRK 293 billion
Total deposits with commercial banks, which include demand deposits and savings and time deposits, continued to rise both monthly and annually, reaching nearly HRK 293 billion at the end of July, data from the Croatian National Bank (HNB) show. They increased by HRK 2.9 billion or 1% compared with June and by HRK 13.3 billion or 4.7% compared with July 2018. Hina