Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor met with opposition leaders on Tuesday to discuss constitutional changes. She told reporters after the meeting that no agreement had been reached because the opposition rejected the government's latest proposal for the introduction of voting by post for Croatians living outside Croatia.
"We haven't reached an agreement today, but I believe we will by the end of the week," Kosor said, adding that another meeting on the same topic would be held on Friday.
Kosor said that since the opposition resolutely rejected the proposal for postal voting for Croatian citizens without permanent residence in Croatia, the ruling coalition would not insist on that solution any more. She said that postal voting had been proposed after the opposition had rejected all previous proposals.
Kosor said that postal voting would require voter registration a year prior to elections in order to update the voter registers, but stressed that the opposition flatly refused such a solution.
"We'll try to think of another solution," Kosor said, stressing that the ruling coalition would not allow the right to vote of Croatian citizens without residence in Croatia to be called into question. She noted that there were similar cases in Europe, citing as an example the representative of the Italian minority in the Croatian Parliament, Furio Radin, who exercises his right to vote in elections in Italy.
Asked if any of the opposition leaders questioned the right of the diaspora to vote in Croatia, Kosor said there were such proposals but would not reveal who tabled them.
She rejected the statement by Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Zoran Milanovic that the government was pushing for solutions proposed by the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH), adding that she could not see anything disputable in Croatian parties promoting the interests of the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"If a party in Bosnia and Herzegovina represents the interests of the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I think that all of us in Croatia, not just the HDZ, should listen, because we want the Croats to remain a constituent people there and we have the obligation under the Constitution to look after the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina," the prime minister said, accusing Milanovic of "attempted manipulation".
Kosor said that the Constitution needed to be changed in order to ensure, among other things, full independence of the Croatian National Bank and the State Audit Office as a precondition for the passage of laws required for the closing of several policy chapters in EU accession negotiations.
"In order to reach an agreement, we must create a positive atmosphere, rather than accuse one another in public," the PM said.
