Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic called on President Zoran Milanovic's closest associates to distance themselves from him and his "harmful policy."

“This time I am calling on people I know well, who are his associates, quite serious people – Orsat Miljenic (Milanovic’s chief of staff), Neven Pelicaric (foreign policy adviser), Dragan Lozancic (national security adviser) to get away from him,” Plenkovic said.

He warned them that they might lose their credibility.

“If they stay with him, then the message they are sending is that they agree with him, and their credibility then is zero. Let them distance themselves from him and let them move away from him and his harmful policies for the sake of the country’s reputation,” Plenkovic said in Brussels in response to Milanovic’s statement in which he called him a traitor.

The prime minister and the president have been at loggerheads for months, trading accusations in public over a number of issues.

“I think the traitor is the one who went to Zeljko Komsic’s campaign in Sarajevo and encouraged someone for whom Croats did not vote for then, and will not now, to become a member of the presidency. It wasn’t me but him,” Plenkovic said.

He added that Milanovic is undermining everything the government is doing well, sabotaging it in an ugly and vulgar way, and working directly to the detriment of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“The phrases he is hurling around have only one goal and that is to harm the interests of Croatia, the Croatian people and, most importantly, the interests of Croats in Bosnia,” said Plenkovic.

The prime minister noted that Milanovic had once again insulted the international High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, who could help with the election law. Then he insulted the United States, European Council President Charles Michel, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Bosniaks who may be less motivated for an agreement with the Croats.

“That is such a harmful policy that we need a huge broom, if not an excavator, to take away, bury and pave all the garbage he throws against Croatia,” said the prime minister.

“The extent of the harm is incredible,” Plenkovic concluded.