Workers' Front MP Katarina Peovic on Friday welcomed the government's plan to establish a national drug wholesaler, saying that in that way the government would not depend on private companies blackmailing it in times of crisis.

Speaking to the press outside the Parliament building, Peovic said it was true that drug prices were not determined by wholesalers but by rules, stressing that the rules currently in force made it possible for margins to be up to 8.5% higher than prices of medicines.

In addition, reference prices of medicines are determined based on the average prices of medicines in reference countries, such as Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Italy and France, which are more developed than Croatia, Peovic said. She added that drug prices were going up also because of delayed payments, which is incorporated into the drug prices.

She stressed the need to find money not just for financing domestic drug production but also for establishing a national drug wholesaler, suggesting using EU funding, favourable credit lines from the Croatian Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and ending the financing of the Catholic Church from the budget and the purchase of military aircraft.

Asked whether the Workers’ Front would run in local elections in Zagreb next year together with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the left bloc, Peovic expressed doubt that her party would run in a coalition with the SDP because of the SDP’s economic policies which she said did not differ at all from those of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).

Peovic said she would run for mayor of Rijeka, warning that this northern Adriatic port city had seen the sharpest fall in living standards n the last 30 years, for which she blamed the SDP. SDP mayor Vojko Obersnel has been at the helm of that city for years.