Croatian Sovereignists party MP Marko Milanovic-Litre on Tuesday called out the ruling coalition over the withdrawal of their signatures from the initiative to include on the parliamentary agenda discussion on a declaration to recognise the Holodomor as Soviet genocide committed against the Ukrainian people.

Milanovic-Litre said his party’s parliamentary group, acting at the request of the Ukrainian community in Croatia, had proposed in March last year that a declaration recognising the Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people by the Soviet communist regime under Joseph Stalin be included on Parliament’s agenda.

He recalled that this year marks the 90th anniversary since the killing of millions of Ukrainians by hunger caused by the Soviet government. Between 3.5 and 7 million Ukrainians, mainly peasants, are estimated to have died then.

Last year there was no will either among the ruling parties or among the opposition to include a debate on this matter on the parliamentary agenda, but after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine there has been a change in thinking and the required 30 signatures have been gathered from MPs to put this initiative on the agenda, Milanovic-Litre said.

He said he had heard similar arguments from the centre-left opposition groups SDP, Social Democrats, We Can! and the Centre. He added that he had learned from the relevant Parliament services that three of the six members of the ruling coalition had withdrawn their signatures, as a result of which this item could not be put on the agenda.

“This was obviously due to political pressure and possibly even blackmail by individuals from the HDZ against their coalition partners to prevent this item from being included on the agenda, even though I have heard from several sources that the declaration has been discussed with the ruling party and that the coalition partners were allowed to decide on their own whether they would support the declaration or not,” Milanovic-Litre said.