President Ivo Josipovic said on Wednesday that budgetary funds earmarked for his office for this year had not increased in real terms, but that there had been a reallocation of costs as a result of which funds had been increased by 9.7 per cent.
Josipovic made the statement after visiting the Institute of Naval Engineering. He was asked by reporters to comment on Tuesday's statement by Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor that funds for the Office of the President had been increased for this year by 37.4 per cent.
"The budget of the Office of the President was not increased by a single kuna in real terms. It was increased by 9.7 per cent, and not by 37 per cent, because the government had decided to reallocate certain costs, specifically the cost of use of the government plane, from a central treasury to each user, including the Office of the President. The government was fair and increased the budget of the Office of the President by that amount," Josipovic said.
Kosor, commenting on Josipovic's statement about the transparency of the state budget, said in Dubrovnik on Tuesday that she would have preferred if Josipovic had said it to the government.
Josipovic said on Wednesday that, after a meeting of his Economic Advisory Council, he spoke about an international study that assessed budget openness or transparency, and that it was not his intention to criticise the government. He said that according to that survey Croatia was not the worst, but not good either, because it was classified as a country in which not all figures were clear to an impartial reader. He recommended developing a new methodology to improve the quality of the state budget.
"However, it seems that pre-election jitters resulted in a statement that best shows that things in the budget don't add up. Since the figures that were used to brief the Prime Minister are completely wrong, I hope this will prompt the government to consider this proposal," the President said.
Josipovic noted that he was always frank in his statements and that in this particular case he only summed up the results of his council's meeting. "I don't see why anybody should see it as an attack or criticism. I always try to present some constructive ideas in good faith."
Josipovic was asked to comment on a statement by Social Democratic Party (SDP) member of Parliament Slavko Linic regarding an investigation into Linic's role in the purchase of weapons for the defence of Rijeka at the start of the war in 1991, in which Linic said that actions by the police warranted a reaction from the President of the Republic.
Josipovic said that the case was under investigation and that he could not interfere in it. He, however, recalled that a fairly large number of charges pressed by the police against members of political parties had been dismissed and that "this raises certain thoughts."
"If this turns out to be another blank, there should be a serious talk about responsibility," Josipovic said.
Responding to a question from a reporter, Josipovic said he expected that Croatia would be given a recommendation on Thursday to close Chapter 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights) in its EU accession negotiations.
"We know that a lot has been done. I always emphasise that great effort is important to close Chapter 23, and we will close it. We must continue improving the judiciary and state administration, because that task is bigger than the fulfilment of the accession criteria itself," the President said.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele is due to report on the current state of affairs in Croatia's accession negotiations at a meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) in Brussels on Thursday.