The president of the Croatian People's Party (HNS), Radimir Cacic, told a news conference in the southern Croatian city of Split on Sunday that announcements concerning a government reshuffle were "yet another false hope" for overcoming the crisis, and the head of the HNS-HSU parliamentary group, Vesna Pusic said the European Union had already made a political decision to make Croatia the 28th member of the bloc.
Cacic and Pusic attended the ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the HNS in Dalmatia.
"At this moment we are facing another offer of fake optimism and hope which has no foundation - and that is a government reshuffle," Cacic said.
Self-confidence and self-respect is necessary for a government to be able to function, Cacic said, adding that this government cannot function as the unemployment, national insolvency and foreign debt were huge.
Pusic said that in her opinion the EU had already decided to make Croatia its 28th member.
In my opinion, this decision has already been made for several reason, of which some were related to us and some aren't," Pusic said. She stressed that of the remaining nine negotiations chapter plus one called "other issues", three would be closed next Tuesday.
Croatia will enter 2011 with six open chapters, she said. "Of these six, three will require a significant amount of money - agriculture, fisheries and regional development and structural instruments. The three chapter that will be closed the last are judiciary and fundamental rights, competition policy and finance and budgetary provisions," Pusic said.
Regardless of the poor current situation, Croatia has made great progress over the past ten years in adopting EU standards, Pusic concluded.
