In response to criticism which the leader of the opposition Peasant Party (HSS), Josip Friscic, levelled against him over the proposed expansion of CEFTA, the premier said that it was he who had proposed the expansion of CEFTA to also include countries outside the Western Balkans.
"This proposal is being mulled in Brussels," Sanader said in Sisak, adding that the main offices of the expanded CEFTA would not be in Belgrade.
Sanader said that Friscic was criticising the government's move without offering alternatives, which the PM interpreted as the start of election campaigning.
The spokesman for the Croatian Agriculture Ministry, Mladen Pavic, rebuffed criticism from the HSS as well, saying that HSS officials either did not know what CEFTA was or wanted to politicise the entire matter.
Earlier in the day Friscic spoke about the negative consequences for the Croatian agriculture of the country's membership in CEFTA.
CEFTA is a copy of bilateral agreements on free trade concluded by Croatia and other individual countries, and CEFTA membership enables Croatia to have a determined level of preferential trade and the possibility of selling its products abroad, Pavic explained.
For the second consecutive year, the rate of export in the Croatian agriculture is 30 percent, which is the best indicator of this branch's competitiveness, the spokesman said.
Currently, the coverage of import by export in the national agricultural production is 65 percent, and this result is partly thanks to the country's membership of CEFTA, Pavic said.