Andrej Plenković

The former manager of the Croatian national football team, Miroslav Ciro Blazevic, has surprised and shocked many in Croatia by appearing in a video made for the European elections by the Independent Democratic Serbian Party, SDSS, a party representing Croatia's Serbian minority.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the top candidate of the centrist European People's Party, EPP, for the post of European Commission President, Manfred Weber, will participate in the central election conference of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, on Saturday in Zagreb.

Plenkovic has developed a strategy of silence on many of the scandals that have embroiled his own ministers and party colleagues, to good effect, Mamic said.

"If you look at his position, this is effective and efficient communication," she said. "He gives short answers, because obviously the outcome of all these cases could go in any direction."

The Adriatic city of Dubrovnik, Croatia's best-known tourist destination, on Thursday and Friday will host the 16 + 1 summit, a Chinese initiative to strengthen business ties between China and 16 countries from Central and Eastern Europe.

The 19th anniversary of the death of Croatia's first President, Franjo Tudjman, was marked on Monday by the unveiling of a more than four-metre-high monument in Zagreb, near the National University Library and the Vatroslav Lisinski concert hall.

Former Economy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Martina Dalic launched her new book 'The Collapse of Crony Capitalism' on Monday, insisting there was no corrupt conspiracy involved in the government's efforts to save Croatia's heavily indebted food and retail company Agrokor.

A meeting of the HDZ's presidency and National Council on Monday decided that the party's political secretary, Davor Ivo Stier and its international relations secretary, Miro Kovac, will be removed from their senior positions after a series of disputes within the centre-right ruling party.

Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic has said that "the will of the people must be respected" after a conservative campaign group called The People Decide gathered more than 370,000 signatures, equal to 10 per cent of the total electorate - enough to have its referendum proposal considered by officials.

At a joint press conference with Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Monday, Croatia's Deputy Prime Minister Martina Dalic said she was resigning as she "did not want to be a burden" to the Prime Minister's government and to Plenkovic's ruling Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ.

Croatian Vice-Prime Minister and Economy Minister Martina Dalic on Wednesday dismissed media allegations that she using her position to benefit her friends and business associates in the process of passing a law on the state management of ailing private company Agrokor.