Opposition MPs said on Wednesday that the Prime Minister's Annual Government Report and indicators he boasted of do not correspond to the reality of life in Croatia, and the conservative Most party leader, Bozo Petrov, said that more people had emigrated in the past eight years than in the 45 years of communist Yugoslavia.

People are not leaving just because of low wages but because they can feel injustice around them, and research indicates that the level of corruption is higher as more people emigrate, Petrov said during a parliamentary debate on Prime Minister’s annual report, which Petrov slammed as biased.

MP Grbin: This sounds more like Switzerland than Croatia

“I thank you for enabling us to be transported to Switzerland for an hour because this report has nothing to do with the reality of life in Croatia,” centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Pedja Grbin told Plenkovic, pointing out that he had failed to provide concrete responses to some burning issues in the country.

Grbin criticised the government’s handling of the COVID pandemic and the situation in healthcare, where debts are continuing to pile on despite repeated government intervention.

Hrvoje Zekanovic of the right-wing Sovereignists told the Prime Minister that he supports a lot of things the government has done during the pandemic and in general, saying that Croatia “actually didn’t cope badly,” but there are some issues he cannot agree with.

One of them, he said, is the introduction of the euro currency, which according to Zekanovic is not an act of monetary stability but an exclusively political aim of additional cohesion and unitarism in the EU.

“I do not advocate exiting the EU, but I advocate constantly examining our status to see what membership brings or takes away, said Zekanovic and added “for now, it seems that we are good here.”

Milorad Pupovac of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) referred to the pandemic and warned that the virus is spreading because we have not achieved sufficient vaccination rate.

With regard to the earthquakes that struck Croatia last year, devastating the central Banija region and damaging the historic centre of Zagreb, Pupovac said that the worst is behind us. ”

We know what needs to be repaired. We have adopted a law to speed up reconstruction. However, I am not sure the Fund is equipped for the task and that it is doing the job properly. Also, the ministry may not be equipped adequately,” said Pupovac.