Earlier today, Minister Holy sent a letter of resignation to Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic.

"Mr. Prime Minister Milanovic, I am resigning as environmental protection minister given that I have politically harmed the Croatian government with my imprudent email to Mr. Rene Valcic, president of the Croatian Railways (HZ) Managing Board," Holy wrote in her letter of resignation.

Milanovic has accepted Holy's resignation, the government's public relations office said in a brief statement.

Croatian Television published an email on its website on Wednesday in which Minister Holy asked the HZ Managing Board president to consider a possibility to keep at another position a female employe, the wife of their party colleague Goran Mazija, who was hired following a public call for applications during the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) regime as a secretary in the office of the president of the HZ Managing Board.

Pusic does not think that the second ministerial resignation in six month of this government meant instability of the government. The government is unstable when it is toppled by the parliamentary majority, Pusic said.

She stresses it is important for the government to function without pauses and that a new minister is appointed as soon as possible.

As far as the European Union is concerned, everything else is an internal issue, Pusic said when asked if the latest resignation would lead the EU to believe that this government was unstable.

The biggest environmental protection NGO - Zelena Akcija - also commented on Environmental Protection Minister Mirela Holy's resignation, saying that it was not fair of the minister to send an email to Croatian Railways Managing Board president Rene Valcic asking him not to fire the wife of their party colleague but stressing that it was an interesting coincidence that the minister resigned over a three months old email at the time when big projects depended on her decision and when a new waste management system was about to be implemented.