Speaking to reporters in the parliament headquarters, environmentalists said that the latest ecological incidents in Sisak and Karlovac indicated that the government did not care for citizens, forcing them to seek protection outside Croatia.
"The system of environmental protection has fallen apart," said Vjeran Pirsic of Eko Kvarner, adding that environmental impact studies were negating ecological incidents when projects were being approved, and that factories continued with harmful emissions, without an adequate response from competent services.
"The entire system has mutated to protect the polluters and capital," said Pirsic, mentioning President Stjepan Mesic's recent message to the oil company INA with congratulations on corporate responsibility.
"You should ask residents of Sisak if INA is a socially responsible company," he said, alluding to recent reports accusing INA of excessive air pollution in Sisak.
Danijel Pavlic of Sisak's Eko Akcija showed reporters a photo of an oil spill on the rivers Kupa and Sava outside Sisak taken by fishermen, saying that competent services were negating that it existed.
Representatives of an environmentalist organisation from Savski Marof warned that the pharmaceutical company Pliva had been dumping waste in a local brook for 40 years, causing an increase in diseases in the community, but that the government was doing nothing to prevent such activity.