Agriculture Minister Marija Vuckovic said on Thursday the European Commission's call on Croatia to ensure an effective monitoring, control, and inspection of bluefin tuna farms referred to audits from 2017-19 and that Croatia had since significantly improved its agriculture legislation.

“Croatia has two months to prepare a response. We’ll see if the Commission will recognise all that we have done. I think we have done plenty,” the minister told the press in Sveti Djurdj in the northern Croatian Varazdin County.

As part of this month’s infringements package, Croatia received a letter of formal notice after an audit and verification by the Commission “identified serious shortcomings in monitoring the transfer and caging operations of bluefin tuna.”

“National authorities should ensure that data are cross-checked, accurate and validated, and should investigate potential non-compliance cases and take administrative or criminal measures against those responsible for infringing EU law,” the Commission said, adding that Croatia “has not taken the necessary steps to address these deficiencies.”

Croatia has two months to respond to the letter and take the necessary measures, the Commission said, adding, “In the absence of a satisfactory response, the Commission may decide to issue a reasoned opinion.”

The press asked Vuckovic to comment on fisheries inspector Marko Pupic-Bakrac’s statement after the letter of notice, that she should resign or the prime minister should replace her.

The minister is meddling in the work of the inspectorate and telling us what to do, while documents on tuna imports in Croatia are being falsified, he said.

As reported by Slobodna Dalmacija daily, Pupic-Bakrac said Croatian tuna farmers were being favored by being made to register tuna imported from Libya only after they exported it to Japan.

Meetings on that are held at the Agriculture Ministry, attended by a dozen ministry employees, and the minister, in agreement with farmers, tells inspectors how to act, he said, calling it abuse of office. He also warned about suspicious activities in the unloading of forage fish intended for tuna farms.

Vuckovic said Pupic-Bakrac was “telling incredible lies. He claims that I regularly met with farmers and fisheries inspectors to instruct them on how to conduct fisheries inspections. He’s lying… I have never done it. Let him find one inspector or one farmer who will back him up.”

She also said proceedings had been instigated against Pupic-Bakrac at the Civil Service Tribunal “for violating regulations” and that this was not the first time.