The conference was being attended by a representative of the Japanese company Marubeni, whose offer has been selected as the most favourable in the search for a strategic partner to the Croatian power utility HEP in the Plomin C project.
Activists displayed banners saying "Marubeni, hands off Plomin! Greenpeace", "Coal is a dirty business - Greenpeace" and "Marubeni, Citizens are against Plomin C - Greenpeace".
Greenpeace Croatia leader Zoran Tomic said Greenpeace and Croatia's Green Action had been campaigning against the project for years, that citizens did not want it, and that if the plant was built, 17 persons a year would die early.
He said the electricity produced in the plant would be twice as expensive as the electricity available on the market now, adding that the protest was not against foreign investments.
He said Croatia should develop renewable energy sources because it had great potential, but that the government's ambitions were too low. He said sunny Croatia had too few solar power stations, and that wind-generated power was the least expensive.
Green Action president Bernard Ivcic said Marubeni was convicted of corruption in big energy projects, having to pay an EUR 88 million fine in Indonesia and a EUR 54 million fine in Nigeria. He added that Marubeni's main partner, the French company Alstom, was involved in even more corruption cases relating to energy projects.
He called for cancelling the contract with Marubeni, stopping all negotiations with the company and scrapping the Plomin C project.