"Croatia has finally mustered the political will to uproot 'the octopus' of endemic corruption, which sucked the country dry and still hampers its drive for European Union membership," President Stjepan Mesic said adding that "corruption has burdened Croatia for too long and it would be dangerous if we did not put an end to it.
In this context he mentioned "the nouveau riche who used their positions of political power to make fortunes in the 1990s" and who are just smiling and expanding their business empires.
"Corruption is rooted in state institutions and public firms, where work is not transparent. They circumvent public bids and make public procurement through direct deals. If we could make the first cuts there, we could start dealing with this octopus," Mesic was quoted by Reuters as saying.
"But now, there is political will to stop it," he stressed.
"The institutions dealing with graft are telling me they are prepared to go the whole way and I hope that will be the case, regardless of who is being investigated," said Mesic. "The prime minister (Ivo Sanader) also agrees and he will not try to stop any judicial proceedings against anyone," the head of state added.
Regarding a calender for Croatia's admission to the European bloc Mesic said that he did not want to insist on dates.
"I insist on introducing European standards as fast as we can. That means passing laws and implementing them fully. If we do that, it will be recognized and the EU will want to take us in," he said.
In this context the Reuters agency commented in the interview published on Friday that "unlike Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, who publicly insists Croatia should join the EU in 2009, Mesic said he was not obsessed with dates."