Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic commented on his conflict with MP Nikola Grmoja of the opposition populist party Most during Wednesday's parliamentary debate, slamming Grmoja's accusations that the government committed high treason, and calling such rhetoric unacceptable in Parliament.

During a debate on a report submitted by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic about his attendance at European Council meetings in 2018, Grmoja started vocally criticising Plenkovic and Foreign Minister Marija Pejcinovic-Buric, saying they are “working in the interests of Serbia,” which immediately caused an uproar.

Grmoja explained that although Serbia had failed to meet the requirements from Chapter 23 in its accession talks with the European Union, which deals with the judiciary and fundamental rights, the EU moved to opened new chapters in negotiations with Serbia.

Grmoja concluded by accusing Pejcinovic-Buric and PM Plenkovic of doing nothing to prevent this, and added several times that they are both “working in Serbia’s interests.”

Various sections of the conservative and right-wing public in Croatia insist that the country should block Serbia’s EU membership as long as Serbia does not deal with clearing up war crimes committed on Croatian soil during the 1991-95 war, and also disclose the fate of some 1,900 people still missing, which are thought to have been captured and killed by Serbian military units.

Speaking on Wednesday, Plenkovic said that Grmoja’s tirade and accusations of high treason were “highly slanderous insults” that crossed the line of acceptable discourse in the Croatian parliament.

“If a person tells you in Parliament that you have systematically been working in the interests of another country, in this specific case Serbia, then that is unacceptable. This crossed the line of what is normal in the Croatian parliament,” Plenkovic said in a cabinet meeting.

He added he wanted to ask Grmoja to explain who did he refer to as being a “traitor”, but the Most MP had already left the chamber.

“We have witnessed a lot of insults, defamatory and slanderous statements, especially by several Most MPs. But when a member of the Croatian Parliament accuses the government of working in the interests of another country, of high treason, then we can say that the line of what can be described as a different political view or opinion has been crossed. That’s too much, and that’s why I told him that his comments were pathetic,” Plenkovic said.

Most (“The Bridge”) party currently has 10 MPs in a 151-seat assembly. The centre-right party had formed short-lived coalition governments twice with Plenkovic’s ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in 2015 and in 2016, which collapsed both times because of their internal disagreements. Their most recent split was in April 2017 when PM Plenkovic had ejected Most from the ruling coalition. 

On Thursday morning, Plenkovic also commented on the incident in his opening remarks of a cabinet meeting.

“In my response, I have clearly said that neither I as Prime Minister, nor this government, nor the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, will tolerate the spread of the kind of hatred that this (Most) party is spreading. We draw a line here. Under no circumstances will we cooperate with such political actors,” Plenkovic said.

The leader of Most, MP Bozo Petrov, held a news conference later on Thursday, commenting on the incident, and defending Grmoja’s comments in parliament the day before.

Petrov told reporters that “it is very difficult to explain why he (PM Plenkovic) and his government have enabled the opening of new negotiating chapters for Serbia, despite the fact that Serbia has not met benchmarks from Chapter 23.”

“From all of this we can conclude that this government is working in the interests of Serbia and not in the interests of Croatia. Working in Croatia’s interests would mean that former prison camp detainees would receive legal protection in Croatia and a possibility would be created for Serbia to pay out damages to Croatian detainees. This hasn’t happened to this day,” Petrov added.

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