Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday that he believed it would be necessary to make some changes, increase campaign funding and shorten the campaign period for the European Parliament elections in order to increase voter turnout.

He lamented the low voter turnout in Croatia and criticised the poor media coverage of the election campaign and called for it to be improved in order to counter this marginalisation by the media.

“There are reasons to make changes. Firstly, the resources allocated to the election campaign need to be increased and the duration of the campaign should be radically shortened. This campaign lasted 45 days and you only have €500,000 at your disposal. Given the change in advertising conditions, this is almost impossible today,” said Prime Minister Plenkovic at a press conference after a meeting of the parliamentary majority in the Government House.

He believes that the media coverage of the European election campaign needs to be changed because important issues were completely ignored by the media, which focussed on other, predominantly “national issues”.

“It was as if there had been no elections. I travelled to the districts and took part in rallies and I had the impression that nobody even thought to ask about the European elections,” said Plenkovic.

“Discouraging” media coverage

“Part of the media coverage has been overwhelmed with questions about the allowances and salaries of MEPs, as if only Croatian MEPs have such salaries. The way it was reported was discouraging and focussed on the consequences rather than the content and benefits,” he added.

Plenkovic regretted that the turnout in the European elections in Croatia was not higher.

“I must admit that I am sorry that more people did not participate; we need to do more. I think the atmosphere was too calm compared to the situation created by (President Zoran) Milanovic, which ultimately led to a high turnout (in the Sabor elections). Now, without constitution-breakers and without media hysteria, the turnout is low,” Plenkovic said.

“The point is that there is no crisis in Croatia, no crisis of the rule of law, there are only personal unfulfilled goals,” he emphasised.

Despite all this, he added, the HDZ is victorious. “HDZ’s result is not only the best in Croatia, but also the best achieved by a sister party in our European family in all 27 member states,” Plenkovic said, pointing out that HDZ won 6 of Croatia’s 12 seats in the European Parliament.
On the other hand, Plenkovic was particularly pleased that “charlatans” had not made it into the European Parliament.

“The citizens have shown the red card to the sellers of empty promises this time,” he concluded.