Croatian Homeland War – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Unpalatable Turn of Events Post-Croatian Operation Storm

August 4, 2023 by inavukic 11 Comments

Front images: Croatian Operation Storm veteran retired general and former MP Zeljko Glasnovic then and now

In May 1991. 94% of Croatian voters at the independence referendum voted “Yes” for Croatia to secede from communist Yugoslavia and become a free, independent democracy. This, its people’s human right to self-determination, was brutally attacked by the Yugoslav People’s Army and Serbs. Today, August 4, 1995, was the start of 84 hours of magnificent, brave and victorious Croatian military liberating operation “Storm”, recapturing thousands of square kilometres of Croatia’s territory occupied by Serb forces. So, this year, like every year, Croatians celebrate the anniversary of the great and successful Croatian military operation that was launched when all peaceful attempts to liberate the country from Serbian clutches failed. It is a celebration of the heroism of the Croatian defenders and the Croatian military victory over the Serbian occupation army. These days, the Croatian media announced the order of events marking Operation Storm Day, the Day of Victory, Homeland Gratitude and Croatian Veterans’ Day: wreath-laying, speeches by political and military officials, mass and an evening concert, which will be broadcast live on national television. But there will be multitudes of Homeland War veterans who will not attend these official events out of grave disappointment with Croatia’s government and the President and their undermining and undervaluing the crucial value of the Homeland War for today’s independent Croatia. The HDZ government’s coalition with those associated with rebel Serbs and Serb forces that terrorised Croatia in the 1990’s is a constant wound and a constant injustice. The ever-increasing presence of communist Yugoslavia manner and mindset is eating away at the ideals and reasons Croatia fought so hard for during the Homeland War.

One would think that in 28 years that have passed since then Croatia would have made greater progress in becoming a fully functional democracy that cherishes above all else the people who in any way helped defend it from the brutal aggression and install it as independent state. But from year 2000 former communists and their descendants took power and instead of lustration, that should have occurred after the War wholly ended in 1998 when last occupied territory was reintegrated into Croatia, Croatia sank deeper and deeper into a state reminiscent of communist Yugoslavia. Corruption, nepotism, dysfunctional judiciary, celebration of former communist regime, humiliation of Homeland War veterans …

And so, while many will celebrate during this weekend this great victory of Operation Storm it is wise to do so by having in mind the sad reality that prevails on the streets of Croatia and sharpening one’s axes, so to speak, to make changes and to rid Croatian corridors of power of former communist operatives and their descendants. To illustrate this sad reality, I have chosen to translate into English two Facebook posts written by retired general of the Croatian Army and the Croatian Defence Council, and former Member of Croatian Parliament – Zeljko Glasnovic:

“From 1991 until today, more than 3,200 Croatian veterans have committed suicide. Almost an entire brigade of the Croatian Army. The number is certainly higher. There is still no accurate data on HVO (Croatian Defence Council) members who took their own lives. One Croatian veteran cut his own jugular veins, another doused himself with gasoline and burned himself alive, a third shot himself in the head with a pistol, a fourth hanged himself from a house, a fifth killed himself with a chainsaw, a sixth killed himself on the occasion ofMesic’s inauguration (Stjepan Mesic President)… and the most widely known, General Slobodan Praljak, innocent, drank a shot glass of poison, like a glass of bile in front of the world public. These are just some of the examples among hundreds of other comrades of theirs who suffered a similar fate because they suffered for years from the “cancer of the soul” better known as PTSD. They survived shells, bombs, bullets, camps, Great Serbian aggression, and war, but they could not survive this kind of peace. They were stronger than the horrors of war, but they could not deal with the horrors of peace, with robbery, with corruption, with extortion, with injustice and humiliation because they felt left behind and rejected after being used. Every third day, a Croatian veteran commits suicide. In the last 5 days, unfortunately, two more brave warriors left us, who did not last under the pressure of injustice, misunderstanding and condemnation.

Who is to blame for this situation among veterans? Who closes their eyes? Who failed? Where did we go wrong? The state failed them, which abandoned many of them to mercy or disfavour of fate, left them without work and status and declared many of them unfit for work. The policy that skilfully manipulates them, diminishes their contribution and disenfranchises them has failed. A society that stigmatises and systematically puts them on the pole of shame because of the alleged ‘privileges’ they have achieved has failed. Those veterans’ associations that, instead of taking care of the veterans’ psyche, were concerned about their political goals, also failed. The media have also failed, as they are instructed not to talk or write about it, and if they do, they do so in an extremely underestimating and sensationalist manner. Our families, who sometimes did not understand what we go through after the war, also failed, why we feel like a burden to others, why we cannot come to terms with injustice and why we persistently return to that most difficult period of our lives. In the end, we defenders (war veterans) also failed because we allowed ourselves to be mocked, belittled and deceived by those whose backsides we defended while they hid in their cabinets during the war so that in peace they would once again create a state that we never dreamed of, for which we never fought, the state we never wanted.

We never needed decorations, ranks or awards, we needed above all the true freedom we cried so much for, the respect we never got and the preservation of what we fought for.

After the end of the Homeland War, we probably expected too much when we thought that the Croatian people would never again allow the re-occupation of the land that was soaked in the blood of the veterans and raised from the ashes on their bones. However, moral criminals from the former Yugoslav Communist regime legally revived in peace and returned the failed creation that we had defeated in the war and thought we had destroyed forever. They took over the government, the cultural space, the media, all state institutions, and above all, they took over the mind and mentality of the people. Let’s not fool ourselves, WE handed it all over to them ourselves without firing a shot.

On a decorated tray.

No paper and pen.

No voice.

Without force.

Without resisting.

In peace.

Voluntarily.

Indifferent.

The average age of a Croatian veteran who fought and died in the Homeland War in the nineties was only 23 years. When I say average age, it means that there were also 17-year-olds. They were still only children who picked up a rifle overnight instead of a book. When a veteran who went to a psychiatric examination in Vukovar was asked if he was thinking about suicide, he answered: ‘Yes, but about mass suicide.’

When my brother left Manjaca (concentration camp) after 15 months, I didn’t recognise him. He experienced a clinical death. But he said: ‘Croats should build a monument to Milosevic (Slobodan Milosevic) on Ban Jelacic Square (in Zagreb), because if he hadn’t attacked them, most of them wouldn’t even know who they are.’ They erased the people’s collective memory and any feeling for the national state. My mother, who was raped twice, ended up in the communist prison in Petrinjska when I was only six months old because someone accused her of trying to sabotage the party elections. All that, and even more, so that today former SKOJ (League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia) members would sit in government, whose offices are headed by former secretaries of national defence, and their chief advisers are Udbas (Yugoslav Secret Services). Is that the Croatian state?! After 30 years, we can freely stop wondering why veterans take their lives en masse and start questioning ourselves, how much have WE as a society contributed to the fact that after everything they have done for this country, they raise a hand against themselves?I end with words from a sermon by Bishop Vlado Kosic:

‘Mary is sad when she looks at our Croatian veterans who created, defended and liberated Croatia with their blood, and then they were categorised as unnecessary, as a surplus against which the media and domestic traitors throw mud, and these do not even deserve to wash their feet. They, in their disappointment, no longer know what kind of country they fought for, so almost 3,000 of them have already raised their hands on themselves. I am calling out all previous politicians and people of influence and position, who hid this situation – you killed them, you are to blame that so many veterans committed suicide, you killed them, you are to blame for their disappointments, and the whole society is responsible, and above all the politicians and traitors of their own homeland who worked and are working against the interests of Croatia, for which they were ready to give their lives.’” (Zeljko Glasnovic, 11 July 2023)

—

“The falsification of history continues in Croatia. Non-existent events are celebrated, non-existent anniversaries are celebrated. The term ‘anti-fascism’ came out of Stalin’s kitchen. The ideological successors of Bolshevik satanism use it even today as a smokescreen to cover up communist crimes. Croatia is pure proof that history repeats itself as farce and tragedy.

While the Croatian Parliament is debating the recognition of the Holodomor as genocide committed against the Ukrainian people from 1932-1933, at the same time, under the guise of anti-fascism, Croatia is celebrating the crime against its own people. Mass graves of victims of communist crimes are being dug out day by day. Until 2011 MUP ( Croatian Ministry of Internal Affairs) recorded more than 700 mass graves in which victims of thepartisan communist regime crimes committed during and immediately after World War II were buried. It is estimated that around 90,000 victims were buried in them. A greater number of mass graves are located in Slovenia. The battlegrounds from eastern Herzegovina to the Macedonian border have not yet been explored. In Serbia, the state commission made an individual list of about 70,000 victims of partisan-communist terror after the entry of the Red Army into Belgrade in 1944. In May 1945, aiming to cover up mass graves the Yugoslav regime issued order known as Order No. 1253. Until 1990. relatives and friends were forbidden to visit the sites of those mass graves. Even today, the successors of the (Partisan) Sixth Lika Division, in conjunction with the mainstream media, stand guard over those places of execution. The mentality sedimented in the party single-mindedness is trans genetically transferred into the present. Yugoslav nationalists know that a lie has more emotional appeal than the harsh truth. Communist regimes have crippled the future generations and left behind a moral and spiritual wasteland. The implementation of the so-called menticide (crime against spirit and mind) continues today. Along with the destruction of the ability to think critically, along with lies and manipulations, they keep us in shackles even today.

At the Yalta conference, Stalin may have stated the truth for the first time in his life when he told Churchill: ‘Satan is a communist and he is on my side.’ Tens of millions of people were killed, tortured, and deported in the Soviet Union alone. Tito’s regime is a microcosm of what happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin’s rule. A few years ago, a non-government organisation named “Memorial” in Russia was abolished after they found a record of 2 million Stalin’s victims. The Red Army raped 355,000 women in Romania alone, 800,000 in Hungary, or a total of 10-15% of the female population. In Germany, 2 million women aged 8-80 were victims of rape. In Berlin alone, 20,000 women committed suicide after the mass rape of typhoidal men from the Red Army.

Today’s heads think identically to their predecessors and if they had the chance to exercise such power, all of us would end up with a bullet in the back of the head like the Dominican Father Dominik Barac who was killed in 1945 only because he wrote the book ‘Philosophy of Communism’ in which he exposed Bolshevik satanism. 1923 Bolshevik satanists formed the Ministry of Disinformation and continue to implement this regime to this day. In China, if you want to work in the public sector, you must first write a declaration that you are not a member of any religious community. This ideological lobotomy is written into their DNA, it is at the core of their being. It has merged so much with their spirit and mentality that even if they took the red chip out of their heads, they would continue to lobby for that regime. It is a pathological, incurable disease in which there is no remorse even on the deathbed, but instead we have statements like ‘I am sorry I did not do more…’ (ordered, killed, raped…). Communism is the biggest fraud in the history of mankind. Today in our country THEY celebrate it. They celebrate rape, killing, terror, abuse, expulsion, brutality, mistreatment, deprivation of human rights – in one word, they celebrate DEATH. And they don’t celebrate it just anywhere. They are holding their freak manifestations in the Brezovica forest in the vicinity of the mass graves where the remains of 6,000 victims of the partisan-communist terror who were brutally murdered are buried.

Over their bones, the regime and the monsters that led the innocent to their deaths celebrate. They even declared a non-working day (a public holiday) to celebrate the murderers of their people. We are still waiting for them to declare a non-working day in honour of the Chetniks to celebrate those who killed Croats in the Homeland War in the middle of Vukovar! While communist symbols are abolished from Lithuania to Hungary, communist guerrillas – the scourge of humanity – are celebrated in the Republic of Croatia. The best example of national masochism.”(Zeljko Glasnovic, 22 June 2023)

Ina Vukic, translation into English

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bishop Vlado Kosic, Communism, communist crimes, Croatia, Croatian Homeland War, Croatian Operation Storm, genocide, mass graves, Partisans, Serb aggression, war veteran sucides, war veterans, Zeljko Glasnovic

Croatia: Major Corruption Scandal Silenced, Judiciary Paralysed

July 24, 2023 by inavukic 8 Comments

The just passed three-day slot, 21, 22 and 23 July 2023, was a historic moment for the Croatian Parliament in that for the first time in more than 30 years of its existence the President of the country (Zoran Milanovic) has called for, convened an extraordinary session of Parliament, making this a precedent of modern Croatian parliamentarianism.

Insults, “hits below the belt”, recriminations, and even grubby personal offences hurled across the chamber of the Croatian Parliament. While hopes for clear resolutions were widespread among the people it was clear from the start that this was not going to solve anything for the better for the people or the country, especially given that President Zoran Milanovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic have done nothing jointly for the nation except cause distress and alarm due to their inability and/or unwillingness to work with each other as a matter of constitutional protocol and people’s expectations. For the first two days of the extraordinary session insults against the government flew at the empty seats usually occupied by the ruling HDZ party and their coalition parliamentary representatives. Then on Sunday 23 July 2023, in the morning part of the sitting these seats were occupied, almost every one of them and insults hurled both ways – it was when voting on the opposition motion, behind which President Zoran Milanovic stood, was to occur. The vote was for the furthering of clarification of culprits in the massive corruption affair of state-owned HEP selling gas reserves ridiculously cheaply: “that the Government undertake to determine within 15 days who is responsible in the ‘gas for a cent’ affair”, and, “that the government ensures the orderly functioning of the judiciary”. Of course, the vote did not go in favour of the motions or conclusions of the proponents – majority of HDZ and coalition partners came to vote and then go back to sunbaking on some beach or swimming pool.

With majority 77 votes, President Milanovic’s motion/conclusion (presented to parliament via government opposition parties) was rejected by which the Government would undertake to immediately, and within 15 days at the latest, take all necessary measures to ensure the orderly functioning of the judiciary in Croatia. The motion of the President of the Republic, which would oblige the Government to determine within 15 days which institutions and persons are responsible for the financial damage caused to HEP, the state-owned power utility, in the implementation of the Regulation on eliminating disturbances in the domestic energy market, was also rejected.

The conclusions of the ruling majority were, of course (!), accepted, stating adamantly that the convening of an extraordinary session by the President of the Republic of Croatia was unnecessary because the Government is taking all necessary measures to ensure the orderly functioning of the judicial authority, as well as all necessary measures to determine the circumstances in the implementation of the Decree on eliminating disturbances on the domestic energy market. Parliament also rejected the conclusions proposed by the entire opposition, that the Government should be tasked with making a decision by which civil servants and employees will be paid for all days spent on strike, and that within three working days, the members of the HEP board, the members of the HERA board (Croatian Energy Regulatory Agency), the HROTE board (Croatian Energy Market Operator), and the State Secretary for Energy in the Ministry of Economy, Ivo Milatic, would be dismissed. The opposition proposal to pay the strikers wages for the days on strike received 67 votes, and 74 voted against. Unlike the voting on other points, three representatives of the SDSS (Independent Democratic Serb Party) did not participate in the voting for this proposal at all.

As I wrote in my last article, a huge corruption story implicating the involvement, either by omission or active role, of government officials or ministers in the abominably damaging low-price sale of surplus gas reserves by government-owned HEP mainly to private company PPD, seemingly enjoying government favouritism and, hence, destroying any changes of a truly free trade in Croatia, is shaking Croatia. To add to this crisis is the standstill or paralysis of the judiciary amidst unresolved claims for higher wages is also shaking Croatia, the rattling of a massive political crisis seeking the demise of those from the government responsible for this situation. The judiciary is already swamped with hundreds of thousands of unprocessed cases, causing the notoriously frustrating and unreasonable delay of ten to fifteen years in the processing of claims and this standstill due to industrial action of protests will surely list Croatian judiciary as the worst bastion of inefficiency and corruption in a democratic country’s judiciary operations. For months now the protest of the judiciary has lingered on with untold damage to the people and economy. Only matters of life and death are being heard by the courts and everything else is at a standstill for months, even thousands of applications for new business registrations!

During the marathon debate that ensued in the parliament at the weekend, the opposition stated that the Government satisfied judges’ and doctors’ claims for higher wages, while ignoring judicial officers’ and administrative staff ‘ claims without whom the judiciary cannot function. It was pointed out that they work for miserable wages on which they cannot survive, and that Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic “trains strictness on the weakest, tramples women on strike, that he doesn’t care”. The opposition claims that the judiciary is paralysed, the rule of law does not work, that Croatia now has a constitutional crisis, and that the situation is extraordinary.

As expected, HDZ party members, on the other hand, emphasised that the situation is neither extraordinary nor true that the judiciary is not functioning. Their frequent criticism was that President Milanovic did not appear at the session, even though he is the proposer, calling him a coward and that he aligned himself with the opposition. They defended the government that in recent years it has continuously increased wages and that it is not true that the government is doing nothing or that it has no will to pursue resolution of the judiciary strike situation. They are convinced that the Government will resolve the situation as it has until now and ultimately increase the salaries of civil servants by adopting the new Law on Salaries in Public Administration and regulations.

Government defending its actions was to be expected but the significant unity achieved at this extraordinary session of parliament was not in the votes against President Milanovic’s motions delivered by the ruling HDZ party and its coalition but rather in the almost perfect government opposition unity on display. Rarely has almost the entire Croatian government opposition been united in the past thirty years on issues that are important to citizens and the country as a whole: anti-corruption and the functioning of the judiciary. While the fact remains that Croatia is, ahead of the 2024 mega elections year, well into the pre-elections campaigning, the accentuation of intolerable markers of corruption at high levels in the country as well as the disfunction of the judiciary that must be addressed remain pressing topics for Croatia that is still and visibly struggling to transition fully from communist Yugoslavia.

In Croatia, which was created independent by 94% people vote at May 1991 referendum and the consequent bloody Homeland War that defended such a strong people vote from Serb and Yugoslav Army aggression, nothing significant has changed in relation to the government-owned companies’ management model that what was had in the one-party communist system of former Yugoslavia. The corruption scandals that keep plaguing the public space in Croatia all these years since the secession from communist Yugoslavia have uncovered repeated chaos and robbery in public goods, repeated attempts to bury corruption scandals before they are unravelled and culprits punished – all in all, chaos, and robbery in public administration appear at all levels. If such an odious track record is to continue then the summer break, until parliament sitting restarts in September, will do nothing to address and answer the question people, not just government opposition, are asking: who is responsible for the shocking loss to the public purse due to the perversely cheap sale of government surplus gas to private companies and what are the consequences for the culprits? Whose hands, if anyone’s, have exchanged cash under the table? Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andre Plenkovic, Communist Yugoslavia, corruption, corruption scandal, Corruption scandals in Croatia, Croatia, Croatia news, Croatian Homeland War, Croatian independence referendum, News, paralysed judiciary, transition from Communism, Zoran Milanovic

Yet Another High-Level Corruption Probe In Croatia

July 13, 2023 by inavukic 16 Comments

PRIME MINISTER OF CROTIA, ANDREJ PLENKOVIC – ON TENTERHOOKS?

I would love to be able to write about an installation of anti-corruption measures across all levels of government administration in Croatia – local, regional, and state government – but sadly I cannot because such measures do not appear to exist or, if they do, they are ignored, and life continues as was during the utterly corrupt communist former Yugoslavia. When stamped out at grassroot levels – local government – then much of the problem of corruption is eradicated. In May 1990, 94% of Croatian voters chose Yes at referendum seeking secession from Yugoslavia. Then the Homeland War for independence ensued to defend that people’s decision from Yugoslav Army and Serb aggression brutal aggression.

33 years have passed since that fateful referendum! Corruption that defined communist Yugoslavia was surely one of the factors solidifying the Yes vote at that referendum in 1990. And yet, here we are – ordinary people are mainly suffocating in that corruption – from pressure to pay bribes to officials, professionals, work force and employment, service provision, business dealings, various licences processes… to corrupt deals at evidently high levels that secure privileges and monopoly for certain companies or corporations and severely undercut the obligatory free-trade environment.

To illustrate corrupt wheeling and dealings Predrag Dragicevic, judge of the County Court in Slavonski Brod, and Darko Puljasic, former Croatian Democratic Union party/HDZ mayor of Požega and member of parliament, were arrested on Tuesday 11 July 2023 morning on suspicion of corrupt crimes. As it turns out, the arrested men are charged with accepting and giving bribes and favouring employment. Searches of homes and other premises used by suspects have been underway in Slavonia since the early hours of that morning.

To add to the detrimental effects of corruption alarmingly high levels of emigration and corruption don’t just co-exist inside Croatia as politicians would like us to believe — they correlate with one another, Tado Juric, a political scientist and historian at the Croatian Catholic University, revealed in his 2021 study “Research on Corruption in Croatia – Measuring Corruption.” His research showed that 75% of companies operating in Croatia claim to know companies that bribe the local or state administration in order to do ‘successful’ business. So, the more corruption, the more emigration.

On 12 July 2023 Croatia’s anti-corruption prosecution office/USKOK, launched a probe into the resale of natural gas by state-owned power utility Hrvatska Elektroprivreda (HEP), local media reported citing unofficial information. USKOK investigators entered HEP’s offices and seized documents, following media reports last week that it practiced reselling of natural gas surpluses at very low prices.

Since the HEP/Gas scandal broke out in the public arena in Croatia ten days ago the Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, keeps saying that someone in the government knew about the resale of gas, but that he didn’t know! Well, during his Prime Ministership mandate Plenkovic has lost and replaced some 20 government ministers due to either proven corruption charges or suspected corruption and he remains “squeaky clean”! He does not stand down, his government is not suspended, his government is not sacked even though the parliamentary opposition has called for his resignation several times amidst his government ministers’ involvement in corruption as would be the case in a functioning democracy! How is this possible if not because of the lack of democracy and saturation with authoritarian rule as the people had to suffer under communist Yugoslavia.

This is almost unbelievable. The Prime Minister carries no responsibility it appears; he does not resign nor is he forced to resign from office! The staged investigation into the HEP scandal will simply give Plenkovic more time to come up with excuses to save his own skin. Not only do the published texts of emails and letters regarding the surplus storage of gas (later sold at obscenely cheap prices) now stand confirmed, which were signed the Head of HEP Frane Barbaric, but at the same time he also informed minister Davor Filipovic and, hence, the prime minister. Plenkovic simply cannot advertently or inadvertently plead that he knew nothing. By default, if he did not know, read, the submissions of the president of the HEP management, on his cabinet’s desk, then his colleagues, those people who read it and were obliged to inform the prime minister, must have known. If he didn’t know, he had to know. Otherwise, he and his government ministers involved must suffer the consequences of gross negligence at work, in office.

According to media reports quoting Zvonimir Troskot, opposition member of parliament, HEP was losing 500,000 euro per day by purchasing natural gas from INA at a regulated price of 47.60 euro per megawatt hour, only to resell it later through the Croatian Energy Market Operator HROTE at lower prices (for 1 cent per megawatt it seems!).

Someone has lined their pockets with cash in this disgraceful example of corruption, for sure. Will the investigation reveal that as promptly as possible or will it bury the case to linger for a decade or more, like similar cases before, is yet to be seen. The effective EU corruption watchdog in Croatia is not involved because there does not appear to be any connection with EU funds but local trade with gas and so not much faith is held in USKOK or any other statutory body in Croatia. They all appear and operate as heavily laced with corrupt individuals who learned their trade during communist Yugoslavia, or whose parents did.

On 13 July 2023 the Parliamentary Committee for Economy held a special meeting regarding the HEP scandal and the sale of surplus gas by HEP, a government owned energy agency. The only Agenda item at this meeting was “has the government acted efficiently in the energy field, i.e. buying and selling gas. Minister for Economy and Sustainable Development, Davor Filipovic, was sought out to speak at the meeting ad he regurgitated the government’s lamentation about last year’s energy crisis in the wake of Russian invasion of Ukraine and EU’s orders for member states to fill their gas reserve storage capacities and that HEP was to fulfil that duty. Minister Filipovic claimed that the government handled the energy crisis well. He admitted that he received several letters from HEP regarding storage of gas including loan approvals to that end. He received a letter from HEP about the gas surplus plan in the warehouse and that the surplus gas will be used for local electricity production or sold on the domestic market if the Minister doesn’t order them otherwise. Clearly defensively Minister Filipovic said that letters did not advise him that the surplus gas would be sold “in this way” (read: cheap as chips!).

“Let’s face it,” said at the meeting HEP Chief Frane Barbaric, “this is not an uncommon occurrence in energy markets around the world. Losses do not occur only in Croatia or only on the gas market …HEP received the gas it had to take over, the demand was low. This was resolved in a prescribed and transparent process over which HEP has and had no influence, but it is a frequent event in the world. If we understood that, no one would make a problem out of this event, let alone an affair.”

Oh dear! If gas sales are so transparent why was Minister Filipovic so surprised and stated that he did not know the gas would be sold (by HEP) “in that way”! Which by the way generated a loss to the state budget of over 10 million euro! Something stinks in all this, and the Croatian taxpayer is entitled to know to whom the gas was sold so cheaply and whether that buyer sold it on and made profit and split the profit with any person associated with the government. The Parliamentary Committee for Economy was told at the special meeting of 13 July that 63% of the cheap gas was sold to Prvo Plinarsko Društvo/PPD which is a private company that has been enjoying exclusive trade privileges, which in themselves attract a great deal of questions and suspicions of corrupt dealings.

So, one must ask: since HEP is government owned and accountable to the government were there no government Policies and Procedures in place regarding sale of surplus gas to which HEP had the duty of care to abide by? Why did Minister Filipovic not mention that HEP acted in breach of standing policies and procedures but merely said he did not know the gas would be sold in “that way”!?One would expect that where there are policies and procedures tightly in place for such matters of national importance as energy is. Or is the case simply that HEP had a delegation to create gas sale prices as it liked without checking first the government or minister? In any case, the government must carry the responsibility of damage done to taxpayers by suspect sale of goods and services purchased from the state budget or supported loans.

Evidently, there is a rather wide web of guilty people in this surplus gas deal and that no one appears innocent, not even the Prime Minister. Ensuing weeks should reveal more of this corruption scandal and heads will roll from the corridor of power for sure.

Judges and employees of the judiciary in Croatia protest for better wages

Furthermore, the current lingering protest by all court judges as well as court employees for increases to their salaries has paralysed the judiciary and placed a halt to all court proceedings; and there are at least one million of those to yet be completed and processed. The government is stamping its feet, refusing to budge enough for the return to normal in the judiciary. Certainly not a good move in the pre-elections year.

The European Commission recommended that Croatia increase the wages of judges, adopt laws on lobbying and increase the efficiency of investigations and prosecution of corruption offences, it said. On 6 July 2023 the European Commission had recommended that Croatia revise the criminal procedure code and the law on the office for the suppression of corruption and organised crime, as set out in the anti-corruption strategy, so as to increase the efficiency of investigations and prosecution of corruption offences, it said in its latest rule of law report on. Whether the court judges’ protest has anything to do with cover ups and delay of prosecuting the HEP scandal and other major cases of corruption, we may find out.

“In addition to recalling the commitments made under the national Recovery and Resilience Plan relating to certain aspects of the justice system and the anti-corruption framework, it is recommended to Croatia to continue structural efforts to address the remuneration of judges, state attorneys and judicial staff, taking into account European standards on resources and remuneration for the justice system,” the European Commission also said.

Undoubtedly aware of corrupt practices in Croatia associated with public tenders, the European Commission also recommended that the government in Zagreb strengthen the framework for a fair and transparent allocation of state advertising by establishing clear criteria, good practices, and oversight measures to guarantee the effective functioning of the public tender procedure. Ina Vukic