On March 17, SIN launched a campaign under the slogan "We need Europe, but not the European Union", handing out portions of traditional cottage cheese and cream to residents of Zagreb.
When asked to comment on the growing number of Eurosceptics in Croatia and the putting up of posters of fugitive Hague tribunal indictee Ante Gotovina, Mesic said: "You see that they are handing out cheese and cream. Somebody is financing all that, because it is in their interest that Croatia is an isolated country. But we will find out soon who is paying all that."
Describing the President's statement as "an intolerable attack and threat", SIN said: "It is incomprehensible that a head of state should stoop to using hate speech and intimidating a democratic party just because it 'hands out cheese and cream' and opposes the mindless policy of European Union membership."
"Since SIN already has 8,000 registered members in Zagreb, President Mesic is not intimidating and threatening only the party's leadership, but all those people as well, and indirectly a majority of Croatian citizens who do not support the country's entry into the European Union. That is why we publicly ask President Mesic, 'Are all those people enemies of the State and in the service of some conspiratorial powers, as his statement implies?" said the statement, signed by party chairman Nenad Ivankovic.