The former Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) man, chairman of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) and CEO of confectioners Kras, was caught unaware following a presentation of the results of the HGK’s Buy Croatian campaign.

Meeting in the hall, Vidosevic was surprisingly prepared – thus far, he had avoided interview requests from the press – and answered all questions until his patience finally ran out and decided that our chat had taken a turn towards the dreaded interview.

What’s your view on the Sanader affair and do you think that he will ultimately end up in jail?

Everyone has to be responsible for their actions, but I’m not too happy with the euphoria surrounding the issue. It is now up to the investigators and tomorrow it will be up to judicial authorities to do their jobs professionally, after which we’ll see the full truth.

What I do not like, what does not make me happy is when I see the daughter of the former premier being followed by tens of reporters. This creates a state of aggression against a young woman who is a brilliant med student and who cannot be at fault for the actions of her parents.

It is high time we started functioning like a normal civil society should and stopped living in a state of euphoria – positive or negative.

You had been an HDZ member for years. Can the Sanader case be disastrous for the party in power?

What is currently happening with former PM Sanader is easily comparable to the situation in Italy two decades ago when the anticorruption action [Mani Pulite] swept the country and the Italian political scene collapsed and some big parties disappeared. After this, Italy took a new turn and Berlusconi emerged.

Italy is still undecided whether this was a good or bad thing. Will the same thing happen here? Anything is possible. But I am certain that after this, nothing in Croatia will be the same again.

Do you think that Jadranka Kosor is doing a good job and can her cabinet lead us out of this crisis?

This government has done an excellent job in some areas. It opened the EU accession process, stabilized the budget and showed interest in markets that no other premier had ever visited before – Moscow, Egypt and Turkey. This shows awareness that it is time to export, time to turn to those that we can sell to and to not be lectured by those who are supposedly acting in our best ‘interest.’

What this government has failed to do is to open a broad front for change. A large part of the public has a negative opinion of the government and this is the result of a frame of mind that expects change to come from others instead of from within. As a result of this way of thinking, not a single industry has been developed in Croatia for more than thirty years, while we’ve been living on credit for the past forty. And this must stop! Unless it does stop, then we will continue giving away everything we own, our banks, our oil company and next up will be our power grid, water and forests, etc.

What are your hopes for 2011? Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel?

In the upcoming year, I expect talks with the EU to continue, which is of the utmost importance for us. This doesn’t mean much as such but the decelerating of the process would have be negative. I expect further budgetary stabilization and control of budgetary spending which could over a dynamic period of three years secure a realistic budgetary decrease of up to 20%.

Of course, all this will mean absolutely nothing unless that which is most important occurs, and that is the opening of an investment cycle. The upcoming year must see at least one substantial investment so that we may consider 2011 a good year and the start of a new era.

Do you have any further political ambitions?

I don’t have any further ambitions and this conversation is now over.