Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic has said that with its entry to the European Union, Croatia will have to adjust itself to "supranational control" and be supposed to set out priorities when adopting national budgets in the future.
"Croatia's sovereignty, still a fledgling one, is entering a stage when we will have again to adjust to systems of a sort of supranational control. However, this time it is our choice, this is not 1918 or 1945, but 2013 when we are entering a (...) group of most developed societies and countries in the world," Milanovic said in his lecture at the Law School in Split on Tuesday.
He also commented on the concept of sovereignty, which was cherished in Europe in the Age of Enlightenment and which he said Croatia "has had no time to enjoy" given that the current financial crisis in the European Union "is heading unstoppably towards a bank union".
"States have proven to be very irresponsible and bad managers of their finances, and some countries (...) have brought into question the entire system due to their errors," Milanovic said, adding that as a result of such developments, there were trends in Europe to establish "a supranational European power and authority that will control banks as many countries have failed to pass that test."
As for Croatia's 2013 state budget, the government "played it safe", which is a decades-long practice in the country, however, Milanovic said, "in the future we will have to abandon such a policy and define priorities although we are aware that such an attitude will displease some people."
Asked by undergraduates to comment on disagreements with Hungary's MOL over Croatia's oil and gas group INA, Milanovic said that one should not drag the Hungarian state into this.
Hungary is one of the few countries that have supported Croatia over the last 20 years, and was one of the first (EU members) to ratify the Croatia-EU accession treaty, the Croatian premier recalled.
He said that when Zagreb had concluded the INA shareholders' agreement with MOL, Hungary was not the owner of MOL at all.
MOL's acquisition of INA shares was legal, but it is another matter how this was enabled, the Croatian PM said, adding that he did not want to speculate on possibilities for challenging the said agreement.
He said he did not want to make the Hungarians stop being interested in the Croatian seaport of Rijeka or in an LNG terminal on the Adriatic.
"I am doing my best not to bring this dialogue to an end," Milanovic said, adding that he would like to see the end of the tensions of the past two years.
(Hina)
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