Members of parliament who voted against the EU military assistance mission for Ukraine have shown ignorance, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Friday, adding that the vote in the parliament showed a dividing line separating those who protected national interests from "political dwarfs and cowards."

During his address at a reception for representatives of Homeland War associations, Plenkovic commented on the vote on the engagement of members of the Croatian Armed Forces in the European Union Military Assistance Mission Ukraine (EUMAM) and thanked those who had voted in favour of the decision — members of the majority in parliament and another 20 Opposition MPs.

However, it is bad, said Plenkovic, that among the 54 MPs who did not vote for the decision, there weren’t a few more of those who can distinguish right from wrong.

The decision on Croatia’s participation in EUMAM fell short of a few votes to be adopted earlier in the day in the parliament. 107 MPs in the 151-seat parliament took part in the voting, and 97 voted for the decision, while 10 were against, and the decision was not adopted as its passage requires a two-third support (101).

In this specific case, we could see complete ignorance of key global, security and political topics, the Prime Minister said, commenting on the outcome of the vote. He added that such an outcome would harm Croatia’s international credibility.

He noted that just 30 years ago, Croatia itself was a victim of the Greater Serbian aggression and the country knows what it is like to defend from a bigger and stronger opponent.

‘Today’s vote is a great dividing line in the political life of Croatia’

Today’s event is a great dividing line in the political life of Croatia that separates those who are serious, responsible, the ones protecting national interests, and that includes the parliamentary majority and these 20 additional MPs, from political cowards not capable of making the right decision, he said.

Croatia is a member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and such an international position implies not only rights but also certain obligations, he stressed, and said that for a long time now Croatia has not been a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) and it can no longer pretend to be a non-aligned country, thus alluding to comments of some MPs that Croatia should not be involved in the mission.