The SDP, the ruling party in 2002, issued a statement in response to claims from the incumbent ruling party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which said that the 2002 government sold eight per cent of Pliva shares without the public's knowledge at a time when the shares' value was considerably lower.
Pliva's shares were practically the only liquid shares at that time and with those 7.94 per cent the government repaid the debt to the health sector, which had been accumulated in the 1990s, and stabilised public finances, which had been devastated during the previous HDZ rule, the SDP said in the statement.