Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced on Wednesday that Minister of Regional Planning, Construction and State Assets Ivan Paladina would be replaced by Branko Bacic, the chairman of the parliamentary group of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), while Minister of Regional Development and EU Funds Natasa Tramisak would replaced by her State Secretary, Sime Erlic.

As a member of the HDZ, Bacic has been elected to Parliament several times. After entering the parliament in 2003, he was appointed State Secretary at the Ministry of Sea, Transport, Tourism and Development, and after re-election in 2007, he froze his term as MP to serve as State Secretary at the Ministry of Sea, Transport and Infrastructure. Before entering Parliament, Bacic served as Mayor of Blato on the southern island of Korcula. He took up his first ministerial post in 2010 when he served as Minister of Construction, Regional Planning and Environmental Protection.

After the 2011 parliamentary election, he chaired several parliamentary committees, and in 2016 he became the chairman of the HDZ parliamentary group.

Bacic, born in 1959, is a geodesy engineer.

Sime Erlic

Sime Erlic, who has been nominated as the new Minister of Regional Development and European Union Funds, currently holds the position of State Secretary at that ministry, having been appointed in 2020.

Before that, he was the head of the City Department for EU Funds in Zadar, and according to the media, he had good results in withdrawing European money.

Erlic is the head of the Croatian Democratic Union’s (HDZ) Zadar branch and a member of the Board of Directors of the Croatian Agency for SMEs, Innovation and Investment.

He was born in the coastal city of Zadar in 1985 and has a degree in economics.