Over the past seven years, the government invested as much as HRK 50 million, and of that sum, 20 million went to the the riding-ground complex. These are the biggest investments in the stud farm since the era of Bishop (Juraj) Strossmayer, the minister said referring to the boom of the eastern Croatian town of Djakovo in the second half of the 19th century.
"Who would then plan to shut it down if such investments are being made?" Cobankovic said on Tuesday, responding to Djakovo Mayor Zoran Vinkovic's bemoaning the government's plan to merge the stud farm in Djakovo and the stud farm in Lipik.
The minister explaining that the plan did not mean that the Djakovo stud-farm would be added to Lipik, but that this would be their merger under the management of the state-run Crostian Horse-Breeding Centre in Lipik.
The merger is envisaged as one of the government's measures to make economies and streamline state companies, institutes and centres.
In response to questions why the horse-breeding centre was headquartered in Lipik and not in Djakovo, the minister said that the decision on the centre's headquarters was made in 2008 and that this centre did not care only about Lipizzaners but also about other breeds of horses and other hoofed mammals.
Cobankovic, who met Mayor Vinkovic earlier in the day, said that some of Vinkovic's proposals regarding the Djakovo stud-farm would be considered.
Before Cobankovic's press conference, Mayor Vinkovic said that he would ask for help in the European Union and thy he would call on Queen Elizabeth II , who visited the Djakovo Lipizzaner stud far in 1972, to help the local authorities in efforts to preserve the farm.
Government officials, including Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, have stressed on several occasions that the breeding of Lipizzaners will continue in Djakovo and that the merger only refers to cost-cutting in management.