President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic's economic advisor, Marko Jurcic, harshly criticised the economic policies of the current government led by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

Speaking at a conference on Croatia’s money market on Thursday, Jurcic said that the 5 percent GDP growth which had been promised was never realised, adding that estimates put it at 2.7 percent, which is too low.

“There is a lot of talk about reforms, but there is also a lack of ambition. One swallow does not a summer make, and a single reform does not make a reform package. The (revenue) results by the Finance Ministry are excellent, but where is the rest?” said Jurcic, and added that some of the government’s measures were populist, Novi List daily reported on Thursday.

He said that praise can be often heard about the fact that large numbers of people will no longer need to pay income tax, but the question remains if this is really something to celebrate, as the reason for this is that a huge portion of Croatians are earning incomes below the lowest tax bracket. In other words, he said, the entire country is turning into a social welfare case.

“That isn’t something we should be happy about. We need reforms, and the first and foremost reform we need concerns public administration because its role is to implement all other reforms… If it’s really true that all the reform potential has been exhausted with reforms related to Agrokor group – which, in reality, is outside the purview of public administration, then we really have to wonder about that potential,” Jurcic said.

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