Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Tuesday met with junior members of the ruling centre-right coalition led by his Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party to present the his party's candidates to take on posts formerly held by Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister, Martina Dalic.

Dalic handed in her resignation last week amid allegations of conflict of interest after the news website Index.hr had published her private e-mail correspondence with consultants who drafted the controversial Lex Agrokor bill in early 2017, designed to stave off bankruptcy at the food and retail group Agrokor.

At the meeting, Prime Minister Plenkovic received support from coalition partners for the current Agriculture Minister Tomislav Tolusic to take the position of deputy prime minister, and has proposed Darko Horvat as the new economy minister.

On Monday Horvat said he was prepared to take on a new challenge as Croatia’s new economy minister. Horvat had previously served as Minister of Entrepreneurship and Crafts from January to October 2016 in the short-lived cabinet of Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic.

Asked what sort of cooperation he expected with the leader of the liberal Croatian People’s Party (HNS) and former economy minister, Ivan Vrdoljak, with whom he had publicly disagreed in the past, Horvat confirmed that in spite of not seeing eye to eye on some matters “that doesn’t mean that we can’t cooperate if some of our views are either aligned or changed.”

Horvat added he did not wish to comment on matters related to the restructuring of Agrokor, of the state-owned INA and Petrokemija companies, before being sworn in.

Croatian Parliament is expected to vote on Horvat’s nomination and on the new deputy prime minster Tolusic on Friday. The vote is seen as a formality after Speaker of Parliament Gordan Jandrokovic (HDZ) told reporters earlier this week that the ruling coalition had already secured 77 votes to approve the appointments in a 153-seat Parliament.

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