Croatian parliament debated proposed amendments to the law on the privatisation of the national oil company Ina on Wednesday, with Energy Minister Tomislav Coric saying that the bill aims to align national law with EU directives, and opposition MPs insisting that the changes would favour the Hungarian energy group Mol, which co-owns Ina.

“The bill is motivated solely by the need to align Croatian legislation with that of the EU, which Croatia is a member of, to avoid lawsuits before the European Court of Justice, and protect Croatia’s interests. There is no other motive,” said Coric.

The law on the privatisation of Ina, which had been until then fully state-owned company, came into force in 2002 and regulated matters related to its privatisation. In the initial privatisation tender in 2003 Hungary’s Mol acquired a 25 percent stake at the company, later increasing its share to nearly 50 percent. Its second largest shareholder is the Croatian government which retains about 45 percent in the company.

The amendments proposed by the government would scrap provisions from Article 10 of the law, which gives Croatian government exclusive right of control over changes in the company’s ownership structure, as well as the right to veto certain decisions of the company’s management, and the first option to buy.

“With these amendments we are not losing the right to the first option to buy, because the same thing is already included in amendments to the agreement signed by Ina shareholders in 2009,” Coric said.

According to the new bill, any party wishing to own more than 50 percent stake at Ina would be required to inform the Energy Ministry about their plans, and submit a long-term business management plan for the company.

Based on the minister’s recommendation, the government would be required to give formal consent for the acquisition of shares within a 30-day period. The government can withhold or withdraw its consent if it decides that the plan represents a threat to a secure and reliable energy supply.

If the government withholds its consent, the shares should be first offered to the government at market prices.

The bill also adds Article 10a, which says that as long as Croatian government owns a single share of Ina, name two representatives to attend the company management board meetings, without any voting rights.

MP Branimir Bunjac of the populist opposition party Zivi Zid, slammed the bill, saying that it is different from what Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had promised in late 2016, when he announced the government would buy back Mol’s share at Ina.

“On Christmas 2016 PM Plenkovic promised a quarter of the state-owned power board Hep would be sold in order to buy back the Hungarian share of Ina. He said the process would last about a year, and that the deal would be made transparently, with Ina ending up in full Croatian ownership. Two years have passed since then, why did you give up on this?” Bunjac asked.

Ever since acquiring a stake at Ina, Hungary’s Mol and the Zagreb government have had a strained relationship over management rights and investment policy.

Although PM Plenkovic eventually announced that the government would try buying back Ina, no clear plan to do so has emerged since then, with Plenkovic admitting in December 2018 that Mol’s asking price might be an “insurmountable problem.”

However, Energy Minister Tomislav Coric said that the government did not give up on the plan just yet.

“At this moment, Croatia owns a 44.8 percent share of Ina, and as long as I am minister, and as long as this government is in power, that share can only grow larger,” Coric said.

Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.