The associations decided to stop protesting and to sue the government at the Constitutional Court for discrimination in the payment of subsidies.
"The battle to rescue Croatian farmers is just beginning. Discrimination in the payment of subsidies ranges from 20 to 90 per cent. We ask that Agriculture Minister Tihomir Jakovina be held personally responsible. We ask that he resign because he has no reason any more to head the Agriculture Ministry," said Tomislav Pokrovac, president of the SHS farmers' trade union.
Farmers' representatives also want to meet with President Ivo Josipovic, that the entire financial envelope for agriculture be published as well as the names of all subsidy beneficiaries and the amounts they received, and that a state of emergency be declared because of the drought.
Asked by the press why more farmers had not supported the protesters, the president of the ZUSSB association of Slavonia and Baranja farmers, Antun Laslo, said the main reason was the information that police would fine the protesters HRK 30,000-50,000. He said such steep fines scared off many. "We should have stopped the road protests sooner. No one has received such a steep fine yet and I believe no one will."
Laslo said there was no money for the subsidies because of a reallocation of funds within the Agriculture Ministry.
"The ministry is hiding information not only from farmers, but from county offices too. It's obvious the money was redirected to cover salaries," he said, adding that the incumbent government had considerably increased the ministry's staff.
Laslo said the farmers would submit their arguments to the Constitutional Court in the next few days and that if they found no understanding there, they would go to a Strasbourg court.
(EUR 1 = HRK 7.5)