The Bridge party leader Bozo Petrov has said in an interview with Hina that the bureaucrats in Brussels are trying to transform the European Union into a superstate to the detriment of national identities.

Petrov, who is the top candidate of the Bridge slate for the European Parliament elections which will be held in Croatia on 26 May, says that the candidates of his party will not be loyal to the European political families but to the Croatian cause, as defined in Bridge’s plank.

“I believe that the politicians who have so far led the European Union have tried to blot out the identities of the member-states while creating a uniform identity that would pave the way for a sort of superstate,” Petrov says in the interview which Hina published on Sunday.

He also considers the growing popularity of Eurosceptic parties to be the response to this tendency.

“(Creating a superstate) is not the direction which should be taken, and therefore they are receiving the response they have received. I sincerely believe that the European political landscape will considerably change after these elections.”

According to opinion polls, the Bridge slate can count on one seat in the EP after the voting and Petrov, who is the top candidate, says he will not go to the EP but those Bridge candidates who win the highest number of preferential votes.

The Bridge has not joined any of European political groups and still does not want to reveal which of the parties may be its political partner in the EP.

Petrov says that Croatian members of the EP are supposed that fight for the interests of Croatia and its citizens rather than for the interests of “some European political family such as the European People’s Party (EPP).”

He says that the 12 Bridge candidates are homogeneous in interpreting what Croatian interests in accordance how they are defined in the party’s programme.

“We are not limited by the European ideological framework which some European families are trying to impose.”

He also says that “we can see a slow creeping federalisation of the EU and creation of a sort of superstate.”

We believe that the European Commission president should be elected according to the nominations proposed by the representatives of member-states and subsequently endorsed by the EP, says Petrov, expressing his criticism of the model of the nomination of spitzenkandidaten (that is pan-European lead candidates) nominated by European political parties’ groups.

Petrov is for the introduction of the euro as the national currency in Croatia after the country shows readiness for that move and provided that it is approved by citizens in a referendum.