Social Democratic Party leader Pedja Grbin on Tuesday called on the Prime Minister to convene a meeting with the opposition because, he believes, all political stakeholders are supposed to contribute to improving the health and economic situation affected by the corona crisis.
“Croatia has one of the worst situations in the European Union today, with a large number of people infected, and the ratio of people infected to those tested is enormous,” said the Opposition leader.
“We have had a large number of fatalities which in November amount to 50% of the total number of those who have died. We cannot compare the current situation with that of July or during the summer and the government did not use the summer to prepare the Croatian health system for what was to come in the autumn even though a lot of people in the health system had warned of what would occur,” the head of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) said in parliament, calling out the government for not doing the job it should have.
He recalled that the opposition, and in particular the SDP, had already called on the prime minister to sit down for talks, pointing out the examples of Norway and Finland who have the best response to the crisis which resulted in serious cooperation between the ruling majority and opposition and that that is crucial for citizens to comply with restrictions.
Grbin commented on Monday’s meeting of the National Security Council saying that the most important thing in that regard was that the meeting had finally been held because talks were the precondition to resolving any sort of problem, including those related to national security.
“It’s good that a high level of consensus was achieved regarding the radicalisation of society however, an entire set of outstanding issues remain such as a response to the crisis in the health sector and economy that has been caused by the Covid-19 epidemic. The security council meeting is a good step in the right direction and with this resolving the problem has not ended but has only just begun,” said Grbin.
