Croatia is not and will not be painted in such black tones as you wish for as long as this government is in office, Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor told Social Democratic Party (SDP) parliamentarians when responding to their questions during Question Time in parliament on Wednesday.
Gordan Maras of the SDP said that in light of the fact that Croatia had already 320,000 jobless people and that the external debt had reached EUR 44 billion, this year might be described as the year of wrong government moves.
PM Kosor said that his statement was an attempt to belittle the prime minister and the government.
Kosor refuted claims about Croatia being in debt bondage, and stressed that the government's share of the country's external debt had been reduced from 30 per cent in 2003 to 11.8 per cent currently.
"This is an extremely difficult year and the government has come to grips with it," the premier said, adding that a recovery from the crisis was one of her cabinet's top priorities this year.
She said that if SDP parliamentarians wished so, she would personally acquaint the parliamentary caucus with the government's counter-recession and anti-corruption measures.
In response to criticism from SDP MPs about soaring unemployment rates, Kosor said that the government was not the main culprit for the current state of affairs.
"We are in the middle of the global crisis, which you in the SDP wish to ignore," Kosor told SDP MPs.
She said that this year there had been some positive results such as a 5-per cent rise in industrial production in January from December and a 1.5-per cent rise on the annual level.
