Responding to the remark from the interviewer that the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) insisted that Croatia would lose five to six months if early elections were called, Milanovic said that the accession process would not be delayed, except possibly for a month during the election campaign. He said that all issues were a technical nature, except the shipbuilding sector, which he said had been systematically ruined for the past seven years and which remained a political issue.

"When my colleagues from the HDZ say that five to six months would be lost, they subconsciously admit that they would lose elections," Milanovic said, quipping that not a day would be lost if the HDZ won the elections.

Speaking of the fight against corruption, Milanovic said that it should not depend on elections, because the government was hopefully not controlling it and deciding who would be arrested and prosecuted.

When asked if his party would insist that Mladen Bajic be relieved of his duties as Chief Public Prosecutor, although he has been receiving strong support from Brussels as of late, Milanovic said that the SDP could not ignore the fact that Bajic had been making political calculations during his past two terms in office.

"If we receive voters' trust, we will put the whole thing on a new foundation, we will start from a completely new foundation," the SDP leader said.

"Corruption cannot be countered by those who created it, or those who kept quiet about it and made compromises, but only by those who are totally uncontaminated and who will work on a completely new foundation," he said.

Commenting on the letter of support Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor had received from the European People's Party, Milanovic said the letter was commissioned by the HDZ and written by "a technical person" and that it "dangerously contaminated the Croatian political space."

"In that letter a European secretary addressed the Croatian people and told them what to do and how to do it," he said, adding that such a move was unacceptable.