"The 2014 budget is being finalised. It will be finished this week and prepared for discussion at the government, a revision as well. This is very serious work, especially on the valorisation of special measures to reduce the deficit that were adopted alongside guidelines to draw up the budget. Those measures are the reason we have been working so long. I think that any lamenting as to whether there is a hidden agenda or not is flippant treatment of the government," Linic told reporters.
He said he had nothing against the media thinking the government was flippant and that it "wants to scare citizens with the IMF or the European Commission." He added, however, that the government had carried out many reforms and measures to curb the deficit for which it had been praised by the Commission, the World Bank and the IMF.
He once again blamed the previous governments for the increased deficit, saying they had not carried out even one necessary reforms.
"We are now carrying them out at an accelerated pace and my warning that in Croatia we live with a public debt of close to HRK 200 billion, and that this requires far more serious thinking and work, has again been met with the comment 'flippant people with a hidden agenda'," the minister said.