Croatian Parliament to Investigate How Agrokor Failed

The Croatian parliament on Wednesday will support the establishment of a special investigative committee tasked with revealing what happened to fallen private company Agrokor and its commercial group.

The committee, made up of MPs from both the governing and opposition parties, will start work on October 30 and will investigate how the whole Agrokor group was created in the 1990s, with a special emphasis on the role of politicians and state institutions during more than 20 years of its existence.

It will also investigate the role of various politicians and institutions in the passing of the Law on Procedures for Extraordinary Management in Companies of Systematic Significance, which was adopted in April, enabling the state to take control over the company.

The committee is an initiative of the opposition Social Democratic Party, SDP, which reached an agreement with the governing Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ on the issue on Tuesday.

However, SDP MP Arsen Bauk refused to comment on the matter to BIRN, explaining that the committee's tasks are outlined in the SDP's proposal that was filed to parliament in July.

The proposal says that the task of the committee is to "establish the facts regarding the circumstances of the emergence of the Agrokor group… the emergence of its business problems, especially [its] debts towards suppliers and other creditors; the role of regulatory bodies on markets connected to Agrokor's business activities and the circumstances that led to the activities of the government" in proposing to assert state control over the troubled company.

The goal is to establish if the government, in passing the law allowing the state takeover of Agrokor's management, "worked to protect the property and national...