"We have reached a relatively high level of meeting the convergence criteria, we have been keeping a low inflation rate and stable exchange rate for two decades. We have got very good results in the field of budget and fiscal consolidation," the premier said at the start of his cabinet's meeting in Zagreb on Thursday at which a strategy for introducing the euro as the legal tender was on the agenda.
The remaining criterion which still must be satisfied by Croatia is reducing the public debt, he recalled.
At the end of last year the public debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio fell to 78%, and is expected to slide down to 65% by 2021, he informed the cabinet.
"This clearly shows that the government pursues a responsible economic policy," Plenkovic said.
The strategy makes a thorough analysis of economic benefits and costs of the introduction of the euro and gives a description of the activities to be taken during the changeover period.
Plenkovic underscores that the euro as the sole legal tender would help reduce the risks to financial and macro-economic stability.
All that is supposed to contribute to a faster economic growth, improve employment, increase investment and help the financial and economic system to be more resilient to various forms of deviations, he said.
Plenkovic called for making the public more aware ti the importance of this topic.
Furthermore, a national council for the euro introduction is to be set up.
"The strategy does not specify the target date for the convergence to the euro, however, we know exactly which steps are to be taken," Plenkovic said.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday the message of the Constitutional Court's president Miroslav Separovic's comment on the court's ruling on the Lex Agrokor compatibility with the Constitution was that the Government had to intervene in the case of the ailing private Agrokor food and retail group.
"Apart from the fact that the Constitutional Court found that the law was in line with the Constitution, the court also stated that had the government failed to react, it would have been against the Constitution," Plenkovic said at the cabinet's meeting expressing his view of the court's ruling.
Plenkovic says that the most important message was that the court's president Separovic had stated that the government was supposed to intervene, and that failure to act would be against the Constitutional definition of Croatia as a welfare state.
At the start of the cabinet's meeting the premier extended congratulatory messages for Europe Day and Victory Day observed on 9 May.
Those are important events that were a watershed period for the following 70 years of the global development and were important for democracy and values we strove to have in Croatia and to share them with the European family, Plenkovic said.
Text: Hina