The e-mail scandal involving Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Martina Dalic continued on Monday with the publication of new correspondence between her and the consultants and lawyers who had worked on Lex Agrokor, prompting the opposition to demand resignations and an early election.

The new e-mails were again published by the Index.hr news website, showing that the mailing list included Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic’s advisor Dubravka Vlasic-Plese, and a senior official of the Justice Ministry, Sanja Misevic.

Index.hr said members of the mailing list sent Vlasic-Plese drafts of the bill on state-appointed emergency administration, dubbed Lex Agrokor in the media after the indebted Agrokor food and retail company, only days before the government officially endorsed it.

It also said that Finance Minister Zdravko Maric also took part in the e-mail correspondence after the Agrokor crisis began in early 2017.

The scandal, which revealed that consultants and lawyers from the private sector had worked on drafting the controversial piece of legislation without the knowledge of the wider public, prompted opposition leaders to call for resignations and early election.

“From what we have seen last week, it was obvious that Plenkovic knew all the time how Lex Agrokor was drafted, and how it was implemented. With these latest e-mails, I can say now, Plenkovic knew everything, he steered the ship, and he is responsible for everything that went on,” MP Pedja Grbin of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) told N1 on Monday.

“Now it’s clear for all the public to see – it is time for (PM) Andrej Plenkovic to resign, and for the state attorney office to look into the entire situation. What happened here, and what keeps happening, is unprecedented robbery under the guise of a law passed by Parliament,” leader of the opposition Peasant Party (HSS), Kresimir Beljak, said on Monday.

Since the first leaked e-mails were published last week by Index.hr, doubts were raised about possible conflict of interest as some of the people involved in drafting the bill may have profited from its implementation, either by passing on privileged information or by later getting hired as consultants by the company’s state-appointed management.

“The content of these e-mails builds on what we have seen so far, and they confirm that government institutions were only involved later, after the law had already been drafted. The real conflict of interest happened when people who took part in this whole thing were hired as consultants at Agrokor,” said Nikola Grmoja of the Most party, which had been part of the ruling coalition at the time when Lex Agrokor was adopted.

In a separate event on Monday, Agrokor released its 2017 financial results, showing it spent 321 million kuna (€43.4 million) on consulting services since the state-appointed emergency management took over the company in April 2017.

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