Tomislav Karamarko

"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.

As a result of his involvement, Croatia tried to pass a law that tried to protect former Yugoslav secret service agents from extradition to Germany to stand trial. As in many other things, he was unsuccessful.

A former Yugoslav State Security Service official alleged in court that the former leader of the governing Croatian Democratic Union, Tomislav Karamarko, was an informer in the 1980s.

Voters in Croatia are going to the polls on Sunday to take part in the second parliamentary elections since November of last year, with no party heading for an outright majority.

There are 3.8 million eligible voters in the country who can cast ballots to elect 151 MPs, out of which eight are for national minorities and three to Bosnian Croats and the diaspora.

Tomislav Karamarko, who also holds the position of vice prime minister, said on Tuesday that his HDZ party will initiate a motion of no confidence to oust Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic because it believes the government has become dysfunctional.

Karamarko said that his party was ready for new elections, but Croatia "does not have time for that".

Croatian Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic has called on his deputies Tomislav Karamarko and Bozo Petrov to resign, "for the sake of national interests."

Oreskovic also said he had no plans to resign himself, but that the departure of Karamarko and Petrov from the coalition government "would represent a confirmation of its stability."

Bozo Petrov, vice prime minister and president of the junior government party, Bridge of the Independent Lists, MOST, said on Friday that his ministers and MPs will vote to impeach Tomislav Karamarko, Vice-Prime Minister and president of the leading government party, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ.

Croatia's First Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Karamarko has said that his country "will not block Serbia in joining the EU."

Beta agency is reporting, quoting Croatia's Hina, that he said Croatia "wants to develop good relations with neighboring countries - but Serbia must fulfill all the conditions for accession."

Croatian interior minister Vlaho Orepic said on Tuesday that chief of police Vlado Dominic, the head of the Zagreb police, Goran Burusic, the head of police internal control, Stjepan Jurinec, and the chief of the criminal police, Danijel Zugelj, had resigned after the burglary on Sunday night.

Experts worry that Zoran MIlanovic's comfortable victory of his fourth term as party president of Croatia's strongest opposition party, the centre-left Social Democratic Party, SDP, may signal a monopoly of power within the party.