Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) President Tomislav Karamarko on Wednesday said that talks could be held over constitutional amendments that would abolish the statute of limitations on politically motivated killings but that his party would wait for the ruling coalition to first agree to what they want.
"We can discuss amendments to the Constitution. We will see what direction and how these will be formulated. However, I think and as someone said these days, the Constitution is not a basket that everything and anything can be dumped into if this can be resolved by law", Karamarko told the press in parliament house.
He added that when he was interior minister he had embarked on resolving post-war communist crimes.
"You've seen what sort of mentality that is, what sort of public opinion has been created thanks to that Socialist mentality. Everything can be probed except communist crimes.
You saw how that ended", he said, adding that the recently adopted amendments to the legislation on judicial cooperation with the European Union on criminal matters- dubbed 'Lex Perkovic', should never have been adopted.
We have joined Europe and we cannot deceive anyone. Europe has resolved the question of communist crimes, Europe treats all totalitarian crimes the same. In Croatia unfortunately that is not the case. Croatia has adopted all of the EU's resolutions dealing with communist crimes, Croatia has a declaration signed by the Sabor about those very crimes however these are a mere paper tiger as no-one has ever been prosecuted. I believe that that is not normal. We are in Europe and that requires authenticity, sincerity, Europe does not tolerate double standards, he said.
He recalled that 'Lex Perkovic' was adopted immediately after Germany ratified Croatia's accession treaty.
People in Croatia will have to adjust to the fact that in Europe someone's word means something, adding that the announced constitutional changes were just an attempt to buy time.
