Speaking to reporters during a break of a meeting of the SDP main board, Linic was asked to comment on the government's proposal to amend the INA Privatisation Act to ensure that no one but Croatia could hold more than 49 per cent of the shares of the national oil and gas company.

Linic recalled that towards the end of 2010 the SDP had tabled a motion in Parliament under which any acquisition of more than 51 per cent of INA shares would be subject to the approval of Parliament.

Linic said that the SDP had decided on that proposal because of "unclear affairs" in INA, problems surrounding the departure of former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and poor relations on the INA Board. He noted that it was before Croatia completed EU membership negotiations and received an accession date and before any stock exchange transactions.

"Today, nearly ten months after that, talking about a proposal to ban the acquisition of 51 per cent of shares, after we concluded negotiations with the EU and closed the Competition chapter, seems insane and irresponsible to me," Linic said.

Linic said that the SDP would insist that the issue of acquisition of a majority stake in INA should be decided by Parliament, although he was aware it was too late for that. He said that he considered the government's proposal as "a deception of the public" because "this government wants to be seen as the protector of national interests, and we can see from everything that happened with INA who the protector is."

When asked if there were any legal options available, Linic said that the shareholders' agreement between Croatia and the Hungarian company MOL as the biggest shareholder in INA, should be changed. He said that the agreement should be brought into accord with the regulations on trading companies, guarantee INA's development and address in detail the question of exploitation of mineral resources, which he said was in Croatia's national interests.

"I think we can make a deal with the Hungarians and that it won't be hard to change the agreement. It will be much harder to change the agreement on the natural gas business, because what is at issue here is the protection of financial transactions that are harmful to Croatia," Linic said.

Later on, the SDP main board adopted the opposition coalition's Plan 21 as the SDP's election platform. The board said that Plan 21 was open to the public, and expressed its full support for closer dialogue with the public on the election programme.