President Zoran Milanovic responded on Friday to criticism of his non-participation in the Statehood Day celebrations. He said he was sticking to what he had announced during his campaign, because 30 May as Statehood Day was a "so-called holiday" and "a selfish party ceremony", not a date that unites.

“This is the fifth year I have been president and I am doing exactly what I specifically announced in my campaign. And that is that I will not celebrate this so-called holiday, which is really a self-serving ceremony of one party that was pushed through by a corrupt majority in the parliament of the day. So it is the Day of Parliament and not the Day of Statehood,” Milanovic said after attending a ceremony on the occasion of the Zagreb City Day.

Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic criticised Milanovic and part of the opposition for not attendingyesterday’s Statehood Day ceremony. They called this sad, irresponsible and disrespectful towards the state and its laws.

Milanovic said that 30 May does not unite and is not a Statehood Day, adding that Plenkovic “certainly did not vote for the HDZ in 1990.”

“Who storms in with his entourage when the anthem is played?”

“This is a day that (the HDZ) is trying to impose as a public holiday. Something that is a party holiday and that we elegantly abolished 20 years ago by calling the day of the referendum the Day of Statehood, which is the closest thing to the Statehood Day. This was the Croatian Parliament’s day of remembrance. Plenkovic, in his attempts and confusion, announced it as a kind of self-affirmation,” said the President, adding: “I am not standing in anyone’s way to celebrate it.”

Milanovic accused Plenkovic of not caring about Croatian symbols such as the anthem and said this was evident on Friday at the Zagreb City Day celebration. “Who storms in with his entourage when the anthem is played? This is not sacred to Plenkovic. It’snot the first time he’s broken protocol, arrived late and then barged in with his… Burst in with his gang.”

He called Plenkovic a “third-rate diplomat” who “invents a new constitution after 15 years of inactivity in diplomacy.”

“Plenkovic should beware of Turudic”

“Plenkovic has for years usurped the constitutional powers that obligethe president and the government to co-operate in foreign policy, Milanovic said. “He keepsrepeating that I am violatingthe constitution. He explicitly violatesthe letter and the spirit of the Constitution,” he said, adding that Plenkovic is the biggest violator of the Constitution in Croatia.

“Tomorrow I will warn the ambassadors who are acting on the instructions of Plenkovic and (Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic) Radman that they are committing a serious offence if I do not agree,” he said, adding that it was not right for him to learn from the newspapers that Croatia had sponsored something.

“This is how it works in all diplomacy. People are obviously being blackmailed, it is happening in front of our eyes.”

Milanovic again commented on the new State Attorney-General Ivan Turudic, saying that a man who cannot even be a judge for misdemeanours is at the head of the most powerful institution of the prosecutor’s office, adding that “Plenkovic should beware of Turudic.”