Construction Minister Darko Horvat said during a visit to the northwestern city of Varazdin on Monday that his ministry wanted the post-earthquake reconstruction process to be faster and of good quality.

Responding to questions from the press, Horvat said that money from the EU Solidarity Fund would certainly be used for the reconstruction, adding that an application was being prepared to request an extension given the nature and type of damage.

“This kind of problem did not happen in Italy or any other country hit by a natural disaster. The rules for spending money from the Solidarity Fund were not adequately adjusted for us to be able to repair this kind of damage within 18 months,” Horvat said.

He said that 486 applications for reconstruction, worth nearly 12 billion kuna, had been received and over 290 contracts, worth nearly 9 billion kuna, had been signed.

“Citizens are submitting applications and the ministry is making decisions. The only question is public procurement for those projects that are so big in price that they may not even be provided for under EU law for which we have simplified the public procurement procedure,” Horvat said.

(€1 = 7.52 kuna)