"We have adopted a certain platform in which we have underlined the issues which should be addressed with MOL pertaining to INA's business in the future. All indicators in that material, to which the public has access and which the government adopted, show that the parameters and indicators of INA's business performance are deteriorating. We -- the state and the government as a co-owner -- are not happy with that and we want to discuss with our partner, the other co-owner in INA, all those aspects," Grcic said.
Asked about what position the government intended to take, Grcic replied "a firm one".
The first meeting of Croatia's negotiating team, consisting of Economy Minister Ivan Vrdoljak and state property management office chief Mladen Pejnovic, and a team of the Hungarian oil and gas giant is convened for 18 September, some media have reported.
The government appointed its negotiating team in early August and defined a framework for negotiations, including major areas for talks such as corporate management, expense control, refining, wholesale and retail of oil products, and the gas business.
The government's framework also provides figures on INA's business performance, according to which its oil and gas production declined by 14.2% from 2009 to 2012, sales on the Croatian market were down by 24% and in neighbouring markets by 22%, and investments dropped from HRK 3.1 billion in 2009 to HRK 1.28 billion last year.
Particularly worrying are last year's business results in relation to 2011, which show that the profit fell 62%, capital investments were down 17%, oil and gas production was 35% lower, while oil imports rose by 30% and gas imports by 29%.
All this shows that there are problems in the management of INA as an independent integrated oil company and that there are good reasons for an urgent review of the existing management model dating from 2009, which raises the need to open negotiations with a view to establishing a new model based on equal relations reflecting the size of stakes held by individual shareholders, the Croatian government's negotiating framework says.
The government is the second biggest shareholder in INA with a 45%-stake, while MOL is the biggest one, holding close to a half of the stock.
INA-MOL relations came into the spotlight again after Croatia's anti-corruption bureau USKOK said it was still investigating MOL CEO Zsolt Hernadi on suspicion of bribing former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in exchange for management rights in INA. The probe was stopped last December because Hernadi was out of reach to Croatia's judicial bodies, but this changed when Croatia joined the European Union on July 1. MOL denies giving Sanader EUR 5 million in bribes, for which Sanader was sentenced last year to ten years' imprisonment pending appeal.