Debate: This is Europe - Debate with the Prime Minister of Croatia, Andrej Plenković
Date: WEDNESDAY, 22 JUNE 2022
Speaker: Andrej Plenković
Language: EN

As I told you, having been in the European Parliament, I can completely understand the position of the European Parliament and I will certainly give a constructive contribution of Croatia to what we can do to improve our decision-making. And as I said, in terms of foreign policy, we basically agree on 97, 98, perhaps 99% of issues, and there are a small margin of those dossiers where we need more consultation and perhaps more time to forge a compromise. To Ms Borzan on energy, it’s good that you mentioned it, now I can repeat that we have provided an HRK 5 billion package to subsidise our households, to subsidise our micro-, small and medium-sized business, to subsidise our farmers, to subsidise our fishermen, to subsidise our pensioners, to lower the VAT from 25 to 5% from 13 to 5 for all those products which are mostly used by our citizens and thus mitigate the effects of the spike of the prices. And we shall continue to do that again. And not only the government, the state inspectorate, but also the watchdogs in terms of consumer protection should play their role and strongly blacklist those who are trying to profit in this crisis and unduly and unjustifiably raise the prices of their products. When it comes to Mr Grošelj, thank you for the support for the euro. When it comes to the EU funds and to the aid of the European Union through the EU solidarity fund for earthquakes, I’m grateful here for the Commission who has helped us to not only receive for two terrible earthquakes in Zagreb and the Banovina region almost EUR 1 billion, we are streamlining the efforts of all the ministries in order to speed up the process of reconstruction and also, on the general comments on the use of funds, we are using them in the best practices that exist in the European Union with all the scrutiny and the controls that are required. On the rule of law and  When it comes to the migration pact, we of course support it, it is part of our approach to Schengen. Schengen needs to be renovated, upgraded and updated, but Croatia should be within Schengen. When it comes to your comment on Bosnia and Herzegovina national politics – nationalistic politics – please bear in mind Bosnia and Herzegovina applied for membership of the European Union in February of 2016, when Dragan Čović, – the leader of perhaps in your eyes a nationalist party which is Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina, our sister party – was chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This démarche of filing an application was more supported by the Members of this House – Croatian Members of the European Parliament, both from HDZ but also from Social Democrats and some other friends such as at the time Romanian rapporteur Preda – than many Member States of the European Union. And we were the first one to support the European Union membership path of Bosnia and Herzegovina and we shall continue to do so and continue to extend the knowledge and understanding of the country that is based on the concept of one state, two entities and three constituent peoples which should be equal. None of the constituent peoples, in this case Croats, in the territory or federation should not be treated as not equal. This is the only basic, simple, normal, decent demand and we will stick to it. The other issue that Mr Lamberts mentioned, when it comes to the choice of Croatia for being part of the European Union, I think we had this debate when you visited Croatia two and a half years ago, I really enjoyed it and I think you understood that we are doing this of our own choice, of our own free will. We shall continue to do it. Pooling and sharing of sovereignty is something we support. We think we are stronger in the European Union than we would have been if we were not. And therefore, the full understanding of the concept of European integration is something that we fully support. On Schengen and the fact that Croatian police – more than 6 000 members of the Croatian police – is protecting Croatia’s external border, is a job which is very difficult to do, a job where they have the total scrutiny of the entire Ministry of the Interior. Every single complaint is being checked and verified. We have established an entirely independent monitoring mechanism out of our own will in cooperation with the European Commission. I think that the report of the independent monitoring mechanism will be out sometime next week. In the process of scrutiny in the European Parliament when the opinion on Croatia’s membership of Schengen will be done, we will be open to explain and to provide arguments on any potential allegations, if there are some, and we shall provide answers. But generally the Schengen  Plus, we are the country that never made a political decision to elevate walls, no fences, no barbed wires, not with Serbia, not with Bosnia and Herzegovina, not with Montenegro. These are our friends and neighbours, with whom we should not have physical barriers. And this is something that we can only protect by the presence of Croatian police along more than 1 300 kilometres of our external border. To Mr Beck and Mr Jurzyca, two points: Croatia is a highly euro-ised economy. Our savings, our loans are basically more than 50-60% in euros. Some 70% of tourists that visit Croatia come from the eurozone. Our trade is with the eurozone. This was the logical choice, logical follow-up of our accession treaty. We are basically abrogating the derogation and this is the work that has been done diligently, fulfilling all the criteria with the action plan and clear opinions of the Commission and of the ECB actually give us argument to continue to do that. For our economy the euro will bring benefits and it will not be a negative circumstance. When it comes to Schengen, I think I have answered Ms Ernst. I will look at what you have given me. When it comes to Mr Sinčić, I think that it’s no surprise to the Croatian public that you come here and advocate basically the Russian position. This is very clear. You will belong to one of those political actors who is strongly supported by the Russian actors. You did this in the Croatian Parliament. You are doing this now in the European Parliament. It’s your right, but also your responsibility. When it comes to the fight against corruption, I said at the beginning of my mandate six years ago, no one is immune to the independent work of our judicial institutions, our state prosecutor, our special prosecutor for corruption and organised crime, our police, they do their work independently. Those who will, in the legal process, be declared as responsible for something, they will be condemned, or if they are not, they will be free, just as in any other country in Europe. Corruption is a negative phenomenon, but is not a phenomenon that is only applicable to Croatia. It is unfortunately a phenomenon that exists for many years and we are fighting it strongly with the means, with the changing of the laws, with the action plans, and with concrete cases. And those who know Croatia better certainly know that there is no government influence whatsoever on the work of the prosecutor or our judiciary or the police. And it will remain in such a manner because at the end of the day, when we joined the European Union in 2013 and you of course didn’t contribute one millimetre for Croatia becoming a member of the European Union, I did, members of my party did – unlike you and perhaps yours, so this is a huge difference between the two of us. We have been Europeans from the first day. You have joined the train and you are enjoying the benefits of being an MEP, even though you obviously do not believe in the European Union and haven’t contributed to Croatia’s European journey at all. But that is democracy. I respect it. And I was very happy to be here with you today.