Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Wednesday did not rule out the possibility of Croatian officials being included among candidates for European Commission leadership, noting that so far they had not been considered as candidates.

Last week the Belgian daily Le Soir said that Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic was being mentioned among candidates for the next EC chief, and commenting on the article Plenkovic said that there was a lot of speculation in the European media which was “far from what is actually being discussed at the table.”

Speaking in an interview with Croatian Radio on Wednesday morning, Plenkovic said that he and Grabar-Kitarovic “were not candidates” for the post. “But considering how things are developing, you never know what will happen,” he added.

He said that Croatia as the newest member of the European Union should be pleased with the fact that its political leadership was being mentioned in the context of choosing leaders for European institutions.

“This is almost incredible. We will soon mark only six years of EU membership and we are in a position that Croatia’s key people are included in combinations for these posts,” Plenkovic said.

Speaking of negotiations on the new leadership of the European institutions, Plenkovic said that no agreement had been reached yet, adding that the incumbent European Council President Donald Tusk had said that none of the candidates of the three parliamentary groupings – the European People’s Party, Social Democrats and Liberals, was able to obtain the necessary majority to be nominated as Commission President.

Plenkovic said that during the negotiations it was pointed out that it would be good to avoid a negative vote on the candidates because it would not be conducive to a favourable atmosphere and would have huge political consequences.

He dismissed the claim that an agreement on the new Commission President would be reached at the forthcoming G20 summit in Japan.

“An agreement, if any, will be reached in Brussels on Sunday or Monday” during the next EU summit, Plenkovic said. “The idea is to reach an agreement before the new European Parliament holds its first session. It is scheduled for July 1 in Strasbourg, while the new President should be elected on July 2,” he said, adding that “everything is open.”

“Any additional speculation at this point would not be good,” Plenkovic said.