The Social Democratic Party (SDP) parliamentary group has submitted to the parliament amendments to the Act on Sustainable Waste Management proposing that plastic bags and single-use plastic products be banned as of the middle of 2020 already instead of as of 2021, as regulated by an EU directive.

This would lessen the negative impact of plastic products on the environment and human health and contribute to the establishment of a circular economy, the SDP said.

Social Democrat Mihael Zmajlovic told a news conference that the ban on single-use plastic products would significantly contribute to reducing the amount of waste and help Croatia become a clean country which lives predominantly off tourism.

President’s announcement of candidacy fake

Commenting on President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic’s official announcement of her bid for a second term in office on Wednesday, SDP MP Pedja Grbin said that it was artificial, programmed, lacked substance and contained a lot of lies.

“Let’s be real, what she said she had achieved, that did not happen,” said Grbin.

SDP supports protest of nurses

Grbin expressed his party’s full support for a protest of nurses that was taking place outside the government and parliament offices as he was addressing reporters.

“The finance minister last year proposed a set of measures which reduced the tax burden on the richest, on 1.5% of people in the country. If his statement that there is no money in the budget for healthcare, doctors and nurses is true, the reason for that is that he gave that money to the richest last year,” said Grbin.

He also said that there was no real difference between Maric, Health Minister Milan Kujundzic or Education and Science Minister Blazenka Divjak, who, he said, only pretended to support teachers’ unions in their demand for higher wages.

As for the Croatian candidate for a European Commission vice-president, Dubravka Suica, who is expected to be interviewed in the European Parliament on Thursday evening, Grbin said that Croatia was already red with embarrassment for having nominated her.

“I don’t know if she will be elected today, but we still have not investigated her and her immediate family’s property. It is clear that she does not want to give answers about her property. If everything were so clean and transparent, she would have already published her old declarations of assets and helped dispel all doubts,” he said, noting that in her latest declaration of assets Suica forgot to declare a yacht worth more than a million euros.