Stephen Nikola Bartulica, member of parliament for the right-wing populist party Domovinski pokret (DP), and his wife earn 3,600 euros a month and pay 3,562 euros in loan instalments.

This was revealed by the Index portal. According to the report, Bartulica bought a house with a garden on the island of Prvic for 300,000 euros last year. For this, he took out a loan of 270,000 euros with a term of 11.5 years and paid a further 30. His instalments amount to 2351.43 euros.

This is his second loan of the same amount. He took out the first one in 2013 for 30 years, for which he pays 1,211 euros per month. This first loan is still included in the asset declaration, but not the second one from December last year, although it had to be entered.

The Commission will only deal with the omissions in the asset declaration

For this reason, The Commission for Conflict of interest initiated proceedings against Bartulica.

“Any obliged entity that made a commitment by 31 December 2023 was obliged to declare it in the asset declaration for the year 2023. The Commission will therefore examine the allegations made in your article and initiate proceedings against the obliged entity Stephen Nikola Bartulica,” reads the Commission’s response, which was sent to Index.

However, the Commission pointed out that it would not address the incredible discrepancy between the Bartulica family’s income and expenditure or the discrepancy between income and credit expenditure, but only the omissions in the asset declaration.

Bartulica: “I have a co-debtor who is my friend of many years”

According to the asset declaration, Bartulica has a net income of 3,096 euros. 50 euros are listed in the “Other income” column. His wife has an income of 551 euros, which shows that they spend almost the entire amount of their income on loans.

Bartulica responded on Facebook, writing that “he became the owner of the house on the island of Prvic in January this year and is legally obliged to include it in the asset declaration of assets by the end of 2024”. He explained taking out a large loan, given his and his wife’s income, with the fact that “he has a co-debtor who is his long-time friend”.

Back in May, The Commission for Conflict of interest fined Bartulica for failing to declare his and his wife’s companies in his asset declarations from 2015, 2020 and 2021.