ZAGREB, March 15 (Hina) - The working bodies and parliamentary benches of the six parties of Croatia's ruling coalition supported the Croatian government's draft budget for the year 2000 during a debate at the House of Representatives
on Wednesday. The benches of the opposition Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Croatian Party of Rights/Croatian Christian Democratic Union (HSP/HKDU) bloc will take a stand on the draft budget later "depending on how many of their objections are accepted." During the debate, HDZ representatives reacted strongly to a statement by Dragica Zgrebec of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) bench saying the "HDZ's rule had brought the country to bankruptcy, and citizens and moral principles are facing a similar situation." It is for these reasons and because many problems were concealed that the new government is facing a much more difficult situation than it expected, she
ZAGREB, March 15 (Hina) - The working bodies and parliamentary
benches of the six parties of Croatia's ruling coalition supported
the Croatian government's draft budget for the year 2000 during a
debate at the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The benches of the opposition Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and
the Croatian Party of Rights/Croatian Christian Democratic Union
(HSP/HKDU) bloc will take a stand on the draft budget later
"depending on how many of their objections are accepted."
During the debate, HDZ representatives reacted strongly to a
statement by Dragica Zgrebec of the Social Democratic Party (SDP)
bench saying the "HDZ's rule had brought the country to bankruptcy,
and citizens and moral principles are facing a similar situation."
It is for these reasons and because many problems were concealed
that the new government is facing a much more difficult situation
than it expected, she added.
Zgrebec also warned about the extremely high unemployment rate of
more than 21 percent and the state's enormous foreign debt.
Vladimir Seks (HDZ) opposed Zgrebec's statement saying that
Croatia's total public debt before 1991 amounted to nearly six
billion dollars, and that the old foreign exchange savings, which
the young Croatian state recognised as its internal debt, had
remained in Belgrade. Seks said this debt amounted to five billion
German marks.
Other HDZ MPs opposed Zgrebec's statement as well. Zlatko Matesa, a
former prime minister, said the total debt of his government
amounted to two billion kuna, which, he added, "can be secured in
twenty days of filling the budget." He also said, "there will always
be debts in the budget regardless of how good or bad the budget is."
Djuro Njavro recalled on behalf of the HDZ bench that "the social
state costs and the government has not fulfilled its promises of big
cuts in public spending."
Damir Kajin of the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS) said the first
independent budget of the new government would be its budget for
2001. He also wanted to know about "the companies which will be
privatised in 2000, given that the draft budget envisages some
eight billion kuna (about one billion dollars) of income from
privatisation." Kajin reminded the government of its electoral
promises, adding that "one should not go further with privatising
the state property without the revision of the privatisation
process. If we don't try to financially reorganise part of the
economy we can expect workers' protest."
(hina) jn rml