ZAGREB, July 9 (Hina) - The Croatian government on Tuesday forwarded into parliamentary procedure a package of power bills, a new privatisation bill and amendments to the Telecommunications Law, requesting the parliament to hold an
extraordinary session starting on July 18. At today's extraordinary session the government also adopted a decision enabling Croatian and Bosnian citizens to pass the Croatian-Bosnian state border with identification cards starting on July 10 until September 30. The government also formulated the final drafts of five bills regulating conduct on the power market, including bills on power, power sectors, and electricity, gas and oil markets. The most important law in the package, the law on power, defines power activities as market-based, not including those defined as public utilities (e.g. the transfer and distribution of electric power, the transfer of gas and the distribution o
ZAGREB, July 9 (Hina) - The Croatian government on Tuesday
forwarded into parliamentary procedure a package of power bills, a
new privatisation bill and amendments to the Telecommunications
Law, requesting the parliament to hold an extraordinary session
starting on July 18.
At today's extraordinary session the government also adopted a
decision enabling Croatian and Bosnian citizens to pass the
Croatian-Bosnian state border with identification cards starting
on July 10 until September 30.
The government also formulated the final drafts of five bills
regulating conduct on the power market, including bills on power,
power sectors, and electricity, gas and oil markets.
The most important law in the package, the law on power, defines
power activities as market-based, not including those defined as
public utilities (e.g. the transfer and distribution of electric
power, the transfer of gas and the distribution of thermal
energy).
This law also states that the pricing of power services can be
liberal or regulated with tariff systems adopted by the government,
under the supervision of a parliamentary council for the regulation
of power activities.
This package is a prerequisite for the reconstruction and
privatisation of two leading power companies - the oil company INA
and the power industry HEP.
Finance Minister Mato Crkvenac said the state budget expects this
year's privatisation revenues to amount to 6.5 billion kuna. He
added that, on the other hand, 8.7 billion kuna of budgetary funds
would have to be invested into the economy.
The government formulated a final privatisation draft which will
help carry out the privatisation of the largest part of the state
portfolio in a short period of time.
The Croatian Privatisation Fund has already prepared privatisation
models and needs this law to implement them.
Vice Premier Slavko Linic stressed the new law would enable
privatisation according to the employee stock ownership plan (the
so-called ESOP model).
(hina) np rml