Ivo Sanader

Croatia Seen Backsliding on Corruption since EU Accession

"There is no external pressure to encourage change; the [European] Commission, for example, has abolished the anti-corruption reports it once had."

Responsibility for the fight, Ivkovic Novokmet said, had fallen on institutions now firmly in the hands of the conservative Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, in power since January 2016.

Ethnic Hatred and Violence Will Undermine Croatian Society

"These are individuals, perhaps organised, but they are not the fruit of some climate in society, they are deviations that need to be dealt with based on individual responsibility," Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Wednesday.

Plenkovic added that the government "won't be sucked into a spiral of hate".

Hungary, Croatia PMs Pledge to Resolve Energy Dispute

On his first visit to Croatia in several years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had agreed on the need to resolve the thorny dispute over ownership of the Croatian energy company INA.

"I came to change this unnatural situation and return our relations to the normal track," Orban told the press conference on Monday.

Croatian Ex-Premier Convicted of War Profiteering

Zagreb County Court on Monday convicted former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader of war profiteering for accepting an unlawful payment of 3.6 million kunas (around 485,000 euros) during talks between Austria's Hypo Bank and the Croatian government.

The talks took place during the war, between late 1994 and March 1995, when Sanader was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Croatian Ex-PM Imagines 'Grand Coalition' in New Book

Croatia needs a grand coalition of its two biggest parties - the Social Democratic Party and conservative HDZ - in order to put to rest an "irrational and meaningless" conflict over the country's 20th-century history and focus on more pressing issues, former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader says in his new book.

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