Croatia now has 13 ministries, considerably less than under the previous government, when there were 19 ministries and 22 ministers.
Eighty-one deputies voted in favour of the merging, two abstained and 23 were against -- the opposition, except for the Party of Rights (HSP).
The new ministry is headed by Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, until now the minister of European integration. Parliament is expected to approve her appointment tomorrow, alongside the appointment of new Health and Social Welfare Minister Neven Ljubicic and Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy Damir Polancec.
Prime Minister Ivo Sanader insisted the main reason for the merging was the wish to avoid the overlapping of the two ministries' activities. He dismissed the opposition's claim that the merging was due to lack of good personnel.
"Objections that we couldn't find the personnel are ridiculous. We had several candidates for each post both within and outside the HDZ (ruling Croatian Democratic Union)."
Sanader called on all parties to maintain the consensus reached on Croatia's European Union integration and announced his cabinet would do everything so the entry talks started on March 17 as envisaged.
During today's debate on the government's proposal to merge the two aforementioned ministries, Vesna Pusic of the opposition People's Party (HNS) said that in Croatia's conditions it might be best if the prime minister took over the foreign affairs portfolio, as in Luxembourg.
She added that in that case the HNS might have supported the merging. She said the main problem was that the government lacked people capable of being successful foreign ministers.
The strongest opposition party, the Social Democrats, also said the merging was due to the government's poor personnel policy.
Zlatko Tomcic of the Peasant Party said the merging would send a bad message to the EU because it had supported the European integration ministry, but also to the Croatian public due to the growing Euroscepticism.
Damir Kajin of the Istrian Democratic Party said the government was entitled to select personnel, but added it would have been best if the foreign and European integration ministries had remained separate.
The merging was endorsed by the Social Liberals and the HSP. The latter said the merging was in line with its earlier proposals.
Earlier today, the opposition strongly objected to amendments to the Post Law, saying the government was proposing restrictive regulations which were contrary to the Stabilisation and Association Agreement and the deal with the World Trade Organisation because they were prolonging the monopoly of the national post service.