ZAGREB, Feb 4(Hina) - Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Family, War Veterans' Affairs and Inter-Generation Solidarity Jadranka Kosor on Wednesday refuted claims and media articles stating that the government had deceived war
veterans and that they could expect only understanding since the state had no money for them.
ZAGREB, Feb 4(Hina) - Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Family, War
Veterans' Affairs and Inter-Generation Solidarity Jadranka Kosor on
Wednesday refuted claims and media articles stating that the
government had deceived war veterans and that they could expect only
understanding since the state had no money for them.#L#
Kosor said she was not a minister because of those making such
statements but because of war veterans.
Today she received the first group of war veterans and members of
their families who had been calling the ministry's three hotlines over
the past month and whose problems had been evaluated as the most
urgent.
Kosor said the unanimous conclusion after talks with representatives
of Homeland War associations, the HVIDRA disabled war veterans
association, and the Association of War Veterans' Widows had been to
start working on a new law on the rights of war veterans and their
families.
The new law must offer solutions that will be valid for at least
another ten years as well as foresee future problems and ways of
dealing with them, the minister said, adding that the task force
entrusted with drafting the new law would get to work next week.
The basis of the new law will be the draft made by the Croatian
Democratic Union party's Committee for War Veterans, Kosor said,
adding that without consultations with war veterans' associations and
the public, the government could not send the bill to parliament.
Kosor went on to say she wished for the law to be adopted unanimously
since this would mean it was good, balanced, in line with the
government's possibilities and that it would not be changed by the
next government.
She announced the new law would repeal all provisions on the revision
of war veterans' statuses as the revision encroached on their rights.
According to the calls made to the hotlines, the problems causing the
greatest worry to war veterans include housing, the status of disabled
war veterans, pension and labour rights, unemployment and loans.
(Hina) ha