Parliament Speaker and secretary-general of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Gordan Jandrokovic on Tuesday hinted that there might be a solution to the "tension" between the Conflict of Interest Commission and the government or the HDZ regarding travel allowance documents for a trip to the European People's Party conference in Helsinki.

“We will discuss that and I think that that would be rational ,” Jandrokovic told reporters when asked wouldn’t the simplest thing be to just present the requested documents.

He underscored that it would be worthwhile if the commission did not in cases like this “pull the trigger straight away but to examine the entire situation.” It isn’t good to be under suspicion. You are guided by the principle of being fair toward the state, its finances and then in return someone accuses you of abusing your office. That causes a certain revolt and anger and I think that we can come out of this peacefully and one of the ways would be like you said,” Jandrokovic said after a meeting of the parliamentary presidency.

The Conflict of Interest Commission has opened a case against Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and several ministers because they have not submitted the necessary travel allowance documents to the relevant bodies regarding their attendance at the EPP conference in Helsinki in November last year.

We acted on the principle of frugality

It is obvious that certain tension has arisen in relations between the commission and politics, Jandrokovic said insisting that the government and HDZ had acted properly with regard to the trip to Helsinki.

“Regarding the trip to Helskinki we acted on the principle of frugality, rationality and all the costs of overnight stays, daily allowances were covered by the HDZ. The only cost the state had was for airfares,” he said, underlining that the Prime Minister and he were on an official visit to Helsinki and met with their counterparts, Finland’s prime minister and parliament speaker.

“We could have gone twice. I had been invited to Finland. I would have taken an entire delegation and the government’s plane would have flown again. We estimated that in that situation we could combine a state and party visit and that the fairest way would be to divide the costs,” he said and added that the state had the least expense and that HDZ paid more than HRK 80,000.

He recalled that a similar situation occurred recently with German Chancellor Angela Merkel yet there was absolutely no debate about that in Germany. Merkel conducted an official visit to Zagreb and that same day she attended a HDZ rally. She arrived on an official plane and no one in Germany questioned that, he said.

Jandrokovic announced that the autumn session of parliament would commence on September 18 and lawmakers have 102 items on the agenda to resolve by the end of October.