Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Monday once again appealed to citizens to get vaccinated against Covid-19, saying it is the "best and most effective protection" against the disease.

Speaking to the press after a meeting the senior leadership of his conservative party HDZ in Zagreb, he said Interior Minister, Davor Bozinovic, and Health Minister, Vili Beros, had “informed them of the anti-epidemic measures being taken,” state agency Hina said.

Plenkovic said that vaccination was again picking up and that he hoped it would accelerate even more. Speaking of a recent climate conference in Glasgow, he said that “in the years ahead” the government and the HDZ would promote “as much as possible” the reduction is use of fossil fuels and turning to low-carbon energy sources.

When asked to comment on a recent Supreme Court ruling which rejected the party’s final appeal to a lower court ruling which had convicted HDZ for corruption, Plenkovic said that “the party decided not to go further to the Constitutional Court” to file a motion on whether the sentence was constitutional, “because they concluded it was not necessary.”

Last month, the Supreme Court mostly upheld the verdict in a re-trial of the so-called Fimi Media corruption scandal which involved former party leader and Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader. Sanader and his co-defendants were charged with siphoning around 70 million kuna (€9.3 million) from state-owned companies and institutions through the Fimi Media marketing agency into HDZ’s slush funds in the period from 2004 to 2009, during his time in office as the country’s prime minister.

According to Supreme Court’s ruling, Sanader’s prison sentence was reduced from eight to seven years in prison. He was also ordered to pay back 14.9 million kuna (€2 million) into the state budget, the equivalent of his unlawful gain. His party HDZ, as an organization which benefited from illegal gain, was ordered to pay back another 14.6 million kuna (€2 million), in addition to a 3.5 million kuna (€465,000) fine.

“This story has been closed both legally, and in terms of (party’s) obligations,” he added.

(€1 = 7.52 kuna)