MPs from the Green-Left Bloc on Monday expressed their support for activists of a campaign ironically called the Illegal Construction and Nature Devastation Festival as well as for all citizens fighting against illegal construction along the coast and on the islands.

Activists rallied in Vruja Cove, located near Makarska in southern Croatia, on Sunday to protest against the illegal construction and nature devastation there.

“That area is part of the maritime domain where building is forbidden. Vruja Cove is owned by the Republic of Croatia, which means that the investor is building on the land of another,” Ursa Raukar-Gamulin (We Can!) told a press conference outside the Parliament building.

She warned that instead of a wood and a pristine beach now there is a large holiday resort, a pier, a road several hundred metres long and a tunnel that leads nowhere, she added.

Her party colleague Sandra Bencic announced a joint meeting of the committees on spatial planning and environmental protection to see which laws and institutions should be reinforced to prevent illegal construction and what to do with illegally built structures.

She noted that Vruje Cove was not the only example of illegal construction on the coast, citing similar cases in Premantura in Istria County, Bol on Brac island and Makarska.

Bencic criticised President Milanovic for publicly praising the businessman Stipe Latkovic for his project in Vruje Cove, saying that the coastline and islands were a constitutionally protected category and that the President should not be sending out messages justifying the devastation of the environment.

“If this trend of devastation continues, several decades from now our coast will look like the coast of Chile, California or Australia, and visually it will no longer be part of the Mediterranean cultural heritage,” said Toni Vidan, a member of We Can’s Green task force.