The Croatian government on Thursday dismissed allegations from the interpellation submitted by the Croatian Peasants' Party (HSS) and Democrats parliamentary group over the government's failure to extend a moratorium on the sale of farmland to aliens.

The government states that it will submit the request in a timely manner to the European Commission for an extension of an additional three years to the 7-year moratorium on the sale of farmland to aliens.

The deadline for submitting the request expires on 1 July 2020, seven years after Croatia’s admission to the EU.

Agriculture Minister Tomislav Tolusic said today that the request would be most probably sent to Brussels this September.

Tolusic said that for that purpose, the government had already held talks with officials of the Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union to discuss technical aspects of the lodging of the application.

He also informed the government about long-term leases of state-owned farmland in local municipalities and towns.

By this move, we have practically enabled several generations of Croatian farmers to use state-owned agricultural land, he said adding that the government enabled the sale of that land to local farmers.