Meetings between the government and the State Prosecutor's Office (DORH) about classified cases represent executive authority interference in the judicial authority, Social Democratic Party (SDP) president Zoran Milanovic said on Wednesday when asked to comment on Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor's proposal for a meeting with DORH representatives about suspicions that Hungary's MOL took over management of the Croatian oil company INA after bribing former PM Ivo Sanader.
Meetings between the executive authority with the judicial authority and the state prosecutor on issues concerning confidential investigations are not a good message to the public and represent executive authority interference in the judicial authority, something every government should be aware of, Milanovic told the press.
He said that if he was PM, he would never request a meeting with the state prosecutor in a case that was classified and "very delicate", a case the public knew about only from the media.
Milanovic said that if he was PM, he would discuss INA-MOL relations with the Hungarian side, but added that this should have been done much earlier, when there was time. He also said that signed agreements must be honoured and responsibility for them be taken.
Reporters asked him about the possibility of an interim government signing Croatia's European Union accession treaty in the wake of Kosor' claim that she would be the one signing it.
Milanovic said the subject of accession treaty signing should be put within the practice, regulations and criteria in force in the EU.
The practice in the EU is that heads of state and kings and queens transfer the right to sign the treaty to presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers, "a number of people", as was the case in 1995 and during the 2004 and 2007 enlargement rounds, said Milanovic.
He would be happiest if the treaty could be signed today, "but evidently a good number of months will pass before that."
He said the treaty, in the best case scenario, could be signed in late November or early December, followed by the deadline for holding an accession referendum. This means that parliamentary elections, unless held before the referendum, as advocated by the SDP, will be held in January or February, he added.
Milanovic feels that would undermine the referendum atmosphere and that it would be better to hold the elections in October. "Everyone confident of having done a good job, and the government is confident of that, has the trumps to run in the election, so that we can approach the treaty signing as a technical act and the referendum in a healthier atmosphere," he said.
