Responding to the statements made earlier in the day by the leaders of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Croatian People's Party (HNS), Zoran Milanovic and Radimir Cacic, who called on the government to withdraw its decision to secure funds for the payment of this year's instalment of debt to pensioners by selling shares of Janaf and Croatia Osiguranje, Dalic said at a press conference that the 1998 Constitutional Court ruling on the repayment of debt to pensioners was enforced by the Pension Fund Act of 2005. She added that with that law the government had taken on the obligation to make regular payments into the Pension Fund until the debt to pensioners was repaid in full.

"It's not true and it's sheer politicking, as some SDP leaders claim, that the transferred shares are already in the ownership of the pensioners. It's not true," Dalic said, adding that the stake of the Croatian Pension Insurance Fund in Janaf remained unchanged at 37.3% of the capital stock.

The shares that the government transferred into the Pension Fund were those from the portfolio of the State Property Management Agency, Dalic explained, adding that Janaf would remain majority-owned by the state and that the government's stake in the company would be 73.3% after the transfer, while its stake in Croatia Osiguranje would be 51.28%.

Dalic pointed out that throughout the crisis the government had not allowed the sale of state property, because "as everyone knows, except opposition leaders, the crisis is not a good time for selling." She recalled that when the SDP had been in power its government was selling "the family gold" even though the economic situation at that time was much better than today.

Dalic said the gist of the government decision was that additional assets were made available to the pensioners. "All other claims are incorrect, untrue and they totally misinform the public," she said, adding that it was up to members of the Pension Fund to decide how they would manage those assets.

Dalic specified that the HDZ-led government had so far transferred property worth 8.5 billion kuna into the Pension Fund.

Popijac said the opposition coalition had nothing to say other than severely attack every government move to tackle accumulated problems. He said the people who were now talking about the sale of "family property" had done all they could since 2000 to undermine basic national interests, notably basic energy security.

Popijac went on to say that someone should have told Milanovic which decisions and laws had been adopted in 2000, when an SDP-led coalition came to power, and asked who had adopted the law on the privatisation of INA, which he said stipulates that Croatia's stake in the oil company must fall below 25% before Croatia's entry into the EU, and on what grounds they sold 25% plus one share and for what amount. "I will tell him: for 505 million dollars." He also asked who had sold Hrvatski Telekom and who had adopted the law on the privatisation of the power company HEP.

When asked by the press why the government had chosen those two stocks, Dalic said they had been chosen because they were listed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange, because it was possible to determine their value in a simple way and because it was in the spirit of the Pension Fund Act. She added that it was up to the Pension Fund to decide on the best timing for sale.

Popijac dismissed a reporter's remark that the HDZ's programme was bad given that Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor had said that the opposition coalition's programme was bad and copied from the HDZ. "I was there when the Prime Minister said it and it absolutely isn't true. Prime Minister Kosor said that in certain parts of the opposition's programme she could recognise projects launched by the government."

Popijac said that the section of the opposition's programme dealing with energy projects listed all the projects that had been launched by the present government on April 1 last year.