President Milanović: Croatia is not producing enough food, does not export enough and that is the reason for Croatia having the second highest inflation rate in the EU
„Croatian export rates are nothing compared to its import rates and Croatia does not produce enough food. According to the last data I’ve looked at, we don’t produce enough food for domesic consumption in any category. That is why we have the second or third highest inflation rate in Europe,” said the Croatian President Zoran Milanović while addressing at the ceremonial session of the Town Council of Orahovica on the occasion of the Town of Orahovica Day and the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross.
He added that these parameters are measurable and should be tackled “with active policy measures which will preserve something that used to exist.” “We must find our niche which cannot be tourism in the long run. We haven’t solved the strategic problem, we do not produce food. We will be the ones paying the price, Orahovica, but not only Orahovica, because we will have budgetary issues. Times will be more difficult and these issues will have to be addressed. What will the central state, which governs and allocates the budget, do? At first, it will react as any inert state would – by borrowing at relatively low interest rates!” warned President Milanović.
„We have a service, import-oriented and in the medium term vulnerable economy,” according to President Milanović highlighting food production as strategically important. In that sense, he added that the European Union was established because of food production and as a peace project. “Up until recently, 50 % of the EU budget was allocated to agriculture. Therefore, agriculture moves forward and the rest is on hold. The European Union is overproducing food in almost every category. In this segment, the European Union is very successful. The European Union had also been a successful peace project of affiliation and association until it became a project of German military vehicles and tank production. This will not end well. What used to be was good, noble and useful for all of us, but I’m not sure about what lies ahead,” said President Milanović.
According to President Milanović, serious times are ahead of us and we must keep the rational and calm side and “look after our interests selfishly and not to look forward to foreign warships when they enter Croatia.” “We don’t need that. We don’t need wars led by others. Do not forget that we are a state which has willingly entered enormous alliances – the European Union and NATO – where we have 30 states with different histories in a political and social sense, different memories and different fears. Having all this in mind, we have to cohabit and reach strategic decisions together. We can neither know nor influence cognitive and emotional processes of some other large states that are hundreds of miles away,” he added.
„The European Union as a trade integration and humane idea is great. The EU as a political project where Germans with some others lead the way is not a good idea,” says President Milanović and concludes that our mission is to think and to look after our interests, so that “neither Budapest, Vienna, Belgrade nor Brussels do it for us.”
Apart from President Milanović, the Chair of the Town Council of Orahovica Ivančica Grgić, Mayor of Orahovica Milan Babac, County Prefect of Virovitica-Podravina County and the envoy of the Croatian Government and envoy of the Speaker of the Croatian Parliament Igor Andrović, and the former Croatian President and Honorary Citizen of Orahovica Stjepan Mesić also addressed the ceremonial session of the Town Council of Orahovica.
President Milanović was accompanied by the Adviser for Local and Regional Self-Government Nikša Peronja.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Ana Marija Katić