The parliamentary group of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) has unanimously supported Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic's proposal that Ivan Malenica, the Dean of Sibenik Polytechnic, succeed Lovro Kuscevic as the Minister of Public Administration, the group's chairman Branko Bacic told the press after their meeting on Friday morning.

Bacic said that they did not discuss changes for other ministerial positions. “It has been agreed that an extraordinary session of the Croatian parliament will be convened by the end of the month to decide on the appointment of new government ministers.”

The HDZ leadership has backed Plenkovic to propose a government reshuffle after analysing the work of all government ministries.

“Today we did not discuss the number of ministers who would be replaced. The prime minister has our support to make such a proposal to the party’s leadership and coalition partners, after which our group will confirm the necessary number of ministers,” Bacic said.

Asked if State Assets Minister Goran Maric still enjoyed the trust of the party’s leadership after all the scandals reported by the media, Bacic repeated that the HDZ leadership had expressed their support for the prime minister to decide which ministries would be reshuffled. He said that the prime minister decides on the status of each minister but that his decision also needs the support of the party’s leadership.

Bacic said that he had notified all the coalition partners of the nomination of the new Minister of Public Administration before the prime minister made the announcement on Thursday evening, adding that they supported Malenica’s nomination.

Bacic said that the position of the HDZ and most of the coalition partners was that a government reshuffle should be carried out as soon as possible.

According to unofficial sources, the extraordinary session of parliament might be held as early as the end of next week and the government reshuffle could include four to five ministries.