Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leader Tomislav Karamarko on Tuesday said he was pleased with the fact that the final European Commission monitoring report on Croatia was positive, adding that this was finally some good news amidst all the bad news.
"All I can do is express my satisfaction and share it with our citizens. In the bleakness of all the bad news we are hearing every day, about our government and so on, finally this is something good and proof that we did our job well", Karamarko told the press after a meeting of the party's presidency.
He congratulated everyone that had been involved in the process of accession to the European Union (EU), recalling that since its founding in 1989 the HDZ had advocated for Croatia's entry into the EU.
"We were dreaming about the EU while many still carried Belgrade in their minds", he said.
Asked whether he would congratulate former prime minister and HDZ president Jadranka Kosor, he answered, "but of course, absolutely".
Commenting on that section of the EC report that refers to the introduction of the Cyrillic script in Vukovar, Karamarko repeated that the HDZ supports respect of the constitution concerning ethnic minority rights but that this was a "question of the moment when it should be implemented".
He recalled that there was a provision in the law that facilitated that implementation should contribute to a better understanding and improve relations between ethnic communities.
"We support implementation of the law but let us see when that should occur, let's work together so that this can happen", he said.
Commenting on surveys that show that trust in the government was falling, Karamarko vetted that it was "logical that people don't trust the government because it hasn't done anything to repair the economic situation".
"This relates to the problems of everyday life which people have to face from morning until night, lack of work, people don't have money", said Karamarko.
He did not believe in the results of opinion polls concerning his poor rating though.
"We have other data. I'm interested in the poll that will occur on April 14. Then we will be able to comment and see how credible these opinion polls are. What is important is that the party is holding together and I don't particularly pay much attention to opinion polls." It's another matter what we have in the field, he added.
