President Milanović in Karlovac: We Need to Start Making Political Decisions

The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović visited the meat industry factory PPK karlovačka mesna industrija d.d. – Grupa Pivac in Karlovac to see how the food supply chain was functioning, as he put it, in a complicated situation amid the coronavirus pandemic. Because of the fact that Pivac Group generates a turnover of €500 million, which is economically significant for Croatia, he was interested to learn about the risks the company faced and how it would continue to do business.

After visiting the factory and talking with the heads of the company, the President of the Republic took questions from reporters, stressing that in dealing with the coronavirus crisis Croatia needs to start making political decisions and not those based on expertise.

“At first Croatia responded instinctively to the outbreak of coronavirus, as did most of the world. About a month and a half ago we were met with an uncertainty that frightened the entire world and the most rational thing to do at that moment was to act somewhat irrationally and close everything down. That was the easy part. The hard part of the job is deciding on when to end this, because every passing week is important. Today we know a lot more about the disease than we did two weeks ago or a month and a half ago. Some decisions need to start being made at the political level and not by experts,” President Milanović emphasized.

The President also commented on cases where the State Inspectorate had closed restaurants, saying that in the current situation it was the wrong thing to do.

“The system of oversight has developed well and today Croatia represents a modern state in this regard, but what happened yesterday is something completely different – it’s as if someone returned from a long vacation and wanted to show he was back at work. This was not an isolated case, 20 restaurants were closed for the same reason and the rationale I heard is not acceptable. This was wrong and needs to be rectified as soon as possible. It’s not a matter of expertise; it’s a matter of common sense,” President Milanović added.

The President welcomes the initiative from Osijek to relax the measures further by opening shops.

“We must return to normal life as soon as possible, being aware of some important facts: the virus has penetrated deep into our population, but we are not even close to acquiring immunity; there is no vaccine and it will not be available for at least a year; the virus has very low lethality relative to the number of people who come in contact with it. We have to look after our grandmas and grandpas,” President Zoran Milanović concluded.