"This is yet another deception from the government," HDSSB deputy president Kresimir Bubalo told a news conference in Osijek. He said that before the parliamentary election the coalition led Social Democratic Party (SDP) had promised to organise Croatia into five statistical regions for the sake of an even regional development.

However, the government now wants to halt the development of Slavonia and Baranja, Bubalo said as he believed that the territorial organisation into the two statistical regions would only be beneficial to Zagreb and Zagreb County and partly to Varazdin.

This policy is to give even more to the rich and to take everything from the poor, he said.

They HDSSB leaders fear that Slavonia and Baranja would be losers when it came to the absorption of the EU funds according to the new territorial model in Croatia