The government has not departed from the Agenda 21 election platform in any significant aspect, he said at a session of the SDP's main committee.
"Our task is to do what we said, to be persistent and firm in that and to fight for people's confidence, to show things in the right way. There will be many attempts to distract us in that, they have mainly been made with legal political means so far. I see no danger or extremism in what is happening in Croatian society but I see a deep human dishonesty and hypocrisy," Milanovic said.
He described the political rivalry in Croatia as intense and ideological. "It is founded on what someone calls values but I call an ideological cultural war, a term that has existed in the world and in Europe for decades."
Milanovic said "some are trying to turn Croatia into something it never was, raising the issue of human rights, the issue of minority rights, the issue of women's rights, the issue of the right to choose, which we believed were solved in Croatia decades ago with some kind of consensus."
"Those who really believe in that have my respect and we will fight against them with political, civilised means, because we think, feel and believe differently, which doesn't make us fanatics. However, those who use genuine feelings and a world view that is different than ours to spite, despite essentially not believing in that, and such are many in the Croatian opposition, them I don't respect. That's not a good policy or a healthy stance, but we have to live with that and we will live with that, although it hampers us in the most important job for us, the economy."
Milanovic said the ruling coalition's programme was not being implemented at the expected pace but stressed that the coalition "hasn't strayed."
"A few months ago I said we had bad news for the pessimists and the news is bad insomuch as, by everything we know and see, next year Croatia will economically improve. Maybe things again won't go as fast as we or the citizens expect, but we are finally pulling out of the jaws of depression and recession."
Although at the beginning of his term he said he would not look back on the previous governments, Milanovic said that "in the intensity of the daily political fight we were often forced to look back on what wasn't good."
He said the balance of European Union membership so far was good and that Croatia was more successful in drawing EU funds than before.
"There are successful states, which managed to draw over 75 per cent at their disposal, and states which were much less successful in that. The facts show that we belong to the upper house of states and administrations when it comes to that and we will set ourselves very high standards in that," Milanovic said, adding that the ruling coalition's goal was for Croatia to be "an almost rich state" in 15-20 years.
He underlined the importance of putting finances in order and of economic growth, saying there was no strong education or health care without that.
Milanovic said that by joining the EU, "from the East's West (Croatia) very firmly became the West and not the West's East."
"We are a Western society, a Western civilisation, and what is most valuable in our tradition comes from there. We boast and are proud of that and have been repeating it for 20 years."
He reiterated that he would not allow the undermining of society's foundations "which were built meticulously, with highs and lows, over the last 20 years." He said he was mainly referring to minority rights. "No manipulation, no pulling through constitutional holes will shake us in that."
Milanovic recalled that some members of the European Parliament had pushed for the preservation of national minorities' right to bilingualism, but stressed that what the European Parliament or the European Commission said about this was not crucial.
"We in Croatia manage those issues, as a society, as Croatian citizens, as political Croats. These issues are differently regulated in European states. What we have is our choice, our agreement, our consensus. Yes, that's part of the negotiating framework with the EU which we can change if we want to, but we don't."