The Croatian Parliament on Thursday confirmed Ivan Anusic as the new Minister of Defence, after Mario Banozic was relieved of duty as Defence Minister on Saturday after causing a traffic accident in which one person died.

Anusic received support from 77 of the 151 deputies, 55 were against and there were no abstentions. Anusic immediately took the oath.

The new Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister is a man of extensive political experience, he was the mayor of the municipality of Antunovac and the prefect of Osijek-Baranja County, he was a member of parliament and chaired its Committee for War Veterans and was a member of its Defence Committee. He is a war veteran, a volunteer of the 1991-95 war who fought on numerous battlefields and participated in Operations Maslenica and Flash, and was awarded the Homeland War Memorial decoration.

Anusic was born on 13 October, 1973 in Osijek, he lives in Antunovac and is the father of four. He graduated from the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Zagreb. He has been politically active since 1993, when he joined the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), but later became a member of the HDZ.

Before the vote in the Parliament, Anusic was heard by and received the support of the Defence Committee, where he highlighted the completion of the coastal patrol boat fleet and the army’s return to Beli Manastir as his priorities.

He also announced an increase in allocations for the defence sector, given that Croatia has fallen below the investment limit of two percent of GDP insisted on by NATO.