Croatia is at the bottom of the EU when it comes to former socialist states, only Bulgaria is worse, President Zoran Milanovic said in Zlatar on Saturday, attending a Town Council session on the occasion of town day. Pročitaj više

“That’s not what we should settle for. I now don’t have ties to any party, any slate. To begin with, Croatia must be somewhere in the middle and think about how to be the best in competition with Hungary, Czechia, not with Denmark and Sweden, to be like Slovenia, which had the art of governance and the fortune to develop a little differently than Croatia in the last 30 years and that’s visible,” the president said.

We need decentralisation, he added. “That’s always a big question, to what extent can you disintegrate the state and give power to the people, most directly to the people’s representatives, without shaking the state and taking away what it needs, which is… a backbone… that is upright, but also flexible.”

In Croatia, he said, the level of decentralisation “is pathetic and nonexistent, unfortunately.” “Nothing is being done, unfortunately. Not because one doesn’t know how, because models exist, but because one doesn’t want to, as that costs you political influence, racketeering and the ability to extort… So this is extortion, you’ll do it my way and you’ll get the money.”

The times are different, the president said. “The world is changing, Europe is changing. Young people are starting to go to the polls. Expectations are different, but what doesn’t change is the people’s desire to live well.”

He called on the people of Zlatar to make the most of the EU funds available because they “won’t be coming forever.”