Former State Secretary Igor Lucic said in the trial of former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader at the Zagreb County Court on Friday that members of the government were informed of changes to the shareholders' agreement between INA and MOL, as were members of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Presidency who he said discussed the matter at least on one occasion.
Sanader did not exert any pressure on members of the party presidency, nor did he influence government members who eventually made the decision to sign the shareholders' agreement, said Lucic, the first witness in the trial in which the former PM and HDZ president stands accused of taking a bribe of at least 10 million euros from an executive of the Hungarian oil company.
The anti-corruption agency USKOK alleges that Sanader took the bribe in exchange for giving MOL majority management rights in the Croatian oil company and divesting INA's unprofitable gas business.
Lucic was also one of the members of a task force charged with drafting a new INA shareholders' agreement between the Croatian government and MOL.
Apart from Lucic and the task force's head, the then Deputy PM Damir Polancec, the task force also included Justice Minister Drazen Bosnjakovic, Vedran Duvnjak of the Croatian Privatisation Fund, and former Finance Minister Ivan Suker, who was stood in for at meetings of the task force by Kresimir Dragic.
"We studied the existing agreement to find which provisions could be changed so as to set the minimum under which it would not be possible to go. However, we did not adopt any conclusion," said Lucic.
He added that Polancec informed members of the Inner Cabinet about changes to the INA-MOL agreement, and that Suker and former Environmental Protection Minister Marina Matulovic Dropulic participated in debates on the matter. Discussions on the divestiture of INA's unprofitable gas business were also attended by representatives of the gas transport system operator Plinacro.
Lucic said that separating the gas business from INA was not a task of his task force, but that it did discuss it because INA was incurring losses and MOL, as the strategic partner, was warning about it.
The purchasing price of natural gas on the international market was twice that in Croatia because prices were determined by the government. When this issue was discussed at the government, Sanader warned about the dangers of increasing household gas prices, said Lucic.
Answering a question from Sanader, Lucic said that Sanader reiterated on several occasions at government sessions that Croatia's position in INA should be such as if the government held a 70 percent stake in the company, even though its stake had dropped to below 50 percent.
Lucic said that it was at Sanader's request that Polancec held a presentation to explain details of changes to the INA-MOL shareholders' agreement also to the HDZ's coalition partners, and not only to the government and the HDZ Presidency.
