Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leader Jadranka Kosor said on Monday evening that her party was against the announced privatisation of the Croatian Postal Bank (HPB) and the Croatia Osiguranje (CO) insurance company because it believed that it would not be good to sell the remaining national treasure.
"We will oppose it. We think that it would not be good to continue the sale of the remaining national treasure, of what we have actually borrowed from our children. Here I'm talking about forests, waters and everything else that represents Croatia's treasure, including the HPB and the CO. This is obviously a return to the model of the 2000-2003 period when they were in power. They sold a lot of things back then too," Kosor said in an interview in the late night news broadcast on Croatian Television.
Finance Minister Slavko Linic told reporters after last week's government session that there would be no money in the budget for the HPB and the CO and that they would probably be privatised this year.
Kosor said her party expected the government to present a clear budget structure and explain how it planned to stimulate economic growth and investment, state its main investment targets and the sectors where it intended to make cuts.
"The HDZ believes that making further cuts is not possible without restricting rights," she said, adding that her government had already reduced budget spending to the greatest possible extent.
