Banks Cannot be Profiteers in the Crisis

The President of the Republic of Croatia Zoran Milanović gave an interview for N1 Television, in which he commented on economic measures, the coronavirus pandemic, steps taken by the European Union to address the crisis and other issues. The full interview follows.

Many are wondering where the President has been for three weeks while we have been living in these extraordinary, abnormal conditions. You spoke to the public once, do you think the Government and the crisis management team are doing an exemplary job and there is nothing to add?

I am doing my job in accordance with the Constitution. When the crisis began, it became clear we would have to change the way we live and that’s when I addressed the public at a press conference. I was the first to mention ‘social distancing’ – I’ve heard it before and didn’t invent it – that clumsy expression that we now hear every day, that has become a part of our lives. I told the Croatian public we have to look after our fellow citizens, the elderly, our mothers, fathers, grandparents. In the meantime, I am keeping track of what’s happening; I am in contact with everyone who has relevant information and doing what I must and am allowed to do in accordance with the Constitution.

The Council for the Coordination of the Homeland Security System convened yesterday, bringing together all the relevant people who are on the front lines; you sent your adviser.

I did not send him; he is formally present there in line with the law. That law was passed some time ago and it stipulates who the members of the Council are.

The Prime Minister isn’t a member and he was present.

No, the Prime Minister can be present, the President cannot. That’s according to the law. It’s not up to me to insist on being there, there are other instruments. I am in daily contact with leaders and their aides of those systems for which I am constitutionally responsible – and that is the military, the security system. There is the National Security Council, the Defense Council, there are enough institutions and instruments for operations and monitoring, and this was yet another attempt from several years ago to bring them together. Well, they came together, it’s good to communicate. I say this without irony, it’s good that they are communicating.

How often do you communicate with the Prime Minister?

I talked with him yesterday. We communicate. That’s a good thing. I don’t know how things were before I became President of the Republic, but yes, we communicate.

How well do you think the country’s healthcare system is holding up in all of this? When the crisis began, many were afraid it would collapse, considering the strain.

Our healthcare system is robust; it’s an old system that could be put in place only before there was democracy. A lot of it has been destroyed, but not all and it’s a tough structure. Our system is burdened by enormous debts to the pharmaceutical companies. These are huge debts. This could have been handled differently, and at one point it was almost settled, because in essence these wholesalers and others with huge sums of money gain the most when the state owes them, because it pays them interest. At a time when the interest rate is none or zero percent or one percent, the default interest is such that everyone would like to keep their money there, not in the bank. But that’s just one burdening aspect of it, while the robustness is a good thing. But that is becoming obvious in all Eastern European countries. It’s all very similar, the death toll is lower, the number of active cases is smaller in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and here, and that is in direct correlation with the number of those tested, which is lower here.

What is your position on testing?

I don’t know. Much smarter people have differing opinions on that even though the instruction seems to be – test, test, test. We are testing, even though we’re seeing a small number of fatalities. From what I’ve been told, most of the people who contracted the virus are at home, not in the hospitals, we have about 35 people on ventilators – and we have more than 800 ventilators. During my Government’s tenure, respirators and ECMO devices were purchased – artificial lungs, which no one is using at the moment and it is good to have an excess of these resources always available. But let’s go back to January of last year. At the time of the flu epidemic, the respirators at the infectious disease hospital in Zagreb were functioning on full capacity. This was reported on and it was a small drama that no one paid attention to. It turns out that the situation is better now than it was then.

We’ll see how it will develop.

There is a saying in epidemiology: if you saw one pandemic, you saw that pandemic – only that one.

We have a problem in nursing homes. Yesterday in Split, today in Koprivnica. This could lead to an increase in the number of people infected and on respirators.

In this period, it seems to me that whenever I say something is good, I bring bad luck to it. In conversations with close people, associates. The other day I was commenting on where Boris Johnson was. Within 15 minutes, the media reported he was in a hospital.

An investigation is needed in regard to the nursing homes. Apart from just saying “let the institutions do their job,” I should mention that in nursing homes with hundreds of residents, having a high fever is something that’s normal.

My father passed away in one such facility in the center of Zagreb and although I am sure that the standards there are first-rate, I suppose that at any moment there is always, always someone with a fever among the hundreds of residents who are distributed on the floors according to their health status.

It is possible that some lapses were made.

This will be established in an investigation. I will not comment on the director of the nursing home, but she was a political figure. Is that good? – it might not be, but the medical staff was also present. The directors of such facilities are generally not physicians.

Many are praising Croatia and the restrictive measures that were put in place here; the results are visible, hospitals are not under so much strain.

Yes, and that’s okay, but those measures are pretty much the same everywhere. We’re looking at unprecedented cooperation here; everyone is looking over their shoulder, copying from another, contributing something: an unprecedented cooperation thus far in which there are no profiteers for now, but we will come to that as well, i.e. the potential and actual profiteers of this period, as was the case during our Homeland War, and the people saw and felt this. For now, there is this impression of discipline and commitment in times of trouble that makes us stronger, but the measures are pretty much the same everywhere.

We see what happened in Italy.

What happened in Italy was horrible, but Eastern Europe as a whole seems to be doing okay. It’s too early to try and interpret why. A whole series of measures is being implemented; someone has brought out the police into the streets and forbade people to walk out in the streets, like in Serbia. The results are not as good as in Croatia, but they are better than in Spain, for instance.

We have a similar situation in Hungary. There the Prime Minister took over autocratic powers and ok, if the Hungarians are okay with that, fine. It’s not up to us to comment too much on that. With us it’s different, but I repeat, the measures are more or less the same and people adhere to them in more or less the same way.

You have the application Google Mobility. We are more or less voluntarily monitored by Google and when you put it all together and make an analysis you will see that in Croatia there is 82% less people present at entertainment and shopping facilities than a month ago.

The same goes for Great Britain, in Spain it is 90%. You will see that the measures are the same, more or less, everywhere, apart from maybe Sweden and Denmark, all other countries have, led by some invisible hand, introduced new rules of behavior. People are behaving in the same way. We won’t ever know for sure (what’s working). We’ll have to analyze everything when it’s over, for our own sake, not because we want to criticize anyone, because I have no criticism to offer now.

How can we explain that in Veneto with 5 million inhabitants there were 500 deaths and in Lombardy with 10 million inhabitants 6000 deaths in the same period? So it’s ‘factor 11’, even if you take into account population size, the number is still five times greater, and these are two very closely related provinces of neighboring Italy. I have no explanation for this; someone will have to present and explain this to me.

We see that the measures are being relaxed a bit and the farmers’ markets are opening. Do you think this was a smart decision? We still have a linear curve.

In this situation, you need to work harder than usual. That is perfectly clear. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Some call it war – I do not agree with such a classification – but it is after all a matter of taste. War is a conflict between people. We are in an unfamiliar situation. Some things we know, some we knew two months ago. We now know with certainty that the virus kills older people and those with more serious health conditions.

Once you know that, then you can adapt to it more easily. Let’s say that this is an absolute fact right now and I think that all future measures will be taken in accordance with this. They will increasingly and absolutely become political because few people were infected with the virus in Croatia – and not only in Croatia, but also in Austria, in Hungary.

If the number of tests in Croatia and positive cases are multiplied by ten and if there are 10,000 infected people, it is still a very small number of people, although the virus is here. I don’t see my mother. I hope this is not the solution for the next 50 years because we won’t live that long.

When do you think will the epidemic die down?

It would look as if I am ordering or instructing the Government to do something, but I don’t want to do that because they have enough problems and troubles as it stands and they must be both original and opportunist at the same time, and observe what others are doing. We are all in this together, but also isolated from the state border. In my opinion, the European Union did not fail this test, no one was preparing for this and no one would expect all of us to get together in Brussels and discuss what joint action to take.

Every country is looking out for itself right now, and that’s it. Whether the EU helps countries through the so-called ‘coronabonds’ or stability funds like Germany, the Netherlands, and countries in the north are suggesting, that’s less important, it’s important that some form of help is agreed on.

But that help is belated. We have seen what happened in Italy when no member state sent protective equipment. 

But now they are sending it. When I say this, I have no one in mind to defend and I have my opinion about the concept of the EU. I think that it is good, it is good for us and it has more or less matured – and it does not need to be deepened by transforming the European Union into a state. I don’t support this and I have never supported it, but I do not support isolationism and being closed either.

I see that Albania has sent doctors to Italy and Spain. There is help coming to Italy, it is coming indeed. Albania is a country that Italy has greatly helped 30 years ago and this has not been forgotten.

What about the economy? You don’t think the EU has failed here, but this situation requires a fast response because the losses for the economy are huge.

The losses are horrific and it remains to be seen the exact scope of (the impact). We also have to see how we will balance it all out.

How much time will be wasted because the EU countries cannot come up with a mutual agreement? On the one hand there is Italy and Spain with high death toll and infection rates, they are having huge problems, and on the other hand you have northern countries. How can we talk about one economy if national interests are coming first?

We are talking about human lives here, and the countries and the elected governments are in charge of those lives exclusively. It’s very clear. Help will come and the only question is what Italy would do with the help at this point, or in two weeks. It will definitely come, there’s no issue here. What I do find problematic here is that we don’t know much about this virus, and it may stay among us for a while now. We know it takes the lives of the elderly and sick and we know whom we must protect absolutely. If in half a year this means that I will have to take some risk to protect my mother or your mother and father, then I will know that this is something I have to live with.

How much more resilient do you think the Croatian economy is now, compared to the economic crash of 2008?

It’s a completely different situation. This is a crisis of supply and demand in which, if the supply crisis lasts too long, inflation could occur, if people have enough money. It cannot be compared in any way with the crisis of 2008, not looking at the resilience of the banking system, not looking at the unemployment rates, which are much lower than they were in 2008 in the whole of Europe. The circumstances are different. This crisis has not been in the making, it shocked everyone.

Do you agree with the Prime Minister that this crisis will have more far-reaching consequences?

It depends on how long the crisis will last. If it ends within a month then no; however, the answer is yes in regard to Croatian tourism, a major branch of the Croatian economy, because we are already well into the year and people who may have planned to come here and spend their money had their schedules disrupted, or they did not work and will now have to catch up, and who knows if they will even have vacations – unfortunately, we have to come to terms with that.

There are already some indicators of the depth of the problems we are facing.

Everyone will have major problems. Even Germany. BMW has not been making cars for a month and a number of economies in Central Europe – Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary – depend on BMW and the supply chain. What was once a blessing now turns out to be a double-edged sword, which is the case with our tourism. There was talk of what would happen to our tourism if a crisis erupted… but nothing indicated that this would occur. Something occurred that hit us and Acapulco equally.

But not everyone will recover equally from the crisis. Croatia has trauma from the 2008 crisis. 

The reasons were different and our strength and immunity were not the same. In 2012, as Prime Minister, I inherited a terrible fiscal and budgetary situation, everyone had more or less similar problems. It’s different now. Yes, we are going to have a big economic downturn this year and unemployment is going to rise – the question is by how much. We say that we are safeguarding ‘positions’ (radna mjesta) – no, there are no ‘positions’ – linguistically, that’s a horrible way to put it. There are workers and there are jobs. There is employment. ‘Positions’ are fiction – it’s like from socialism in the 50’s. There are workers, and these measures that are being implemented are actually protective measures. This is not a stimulus; we are setting up a shield that will – for a while and hopefully a short while – protect those who cannot go on without protection.

These are protective measures and they are not belated. You cannot expect the Government to say everything and put everything on the table right after it has made its first offer, and it is logical that this is legitimate bargaining at some level. This was followed by objections, advice and proposals. At the end of the day, everyone was more or less satisfied.

Has the Government adopted the measures under pressure?

Of course. I am not anyone’s advocate here. When the first set of measures was adopted, I said that it was a work in progress. As for the latest measures, the question is how long they can last, and where the limits of our and everybody else’s capacity are. This will hold water for a few months.

Where are the citizens in all of this? Do you think there was no help provided for the most vulnerable groups in society? For example? A loan moratorium?

Yes, absolutely. For the citizens, not the most vulnerable citizens, but almost all citizens. A reserve was released to the banks by a decision of the Croatian National Bank – we can debate about how independent and detached from politics it is, but it is our National Bank, founded by Croatia and working in our interest. We are now in a crisis and what has the National Bank done? Exactly what it had to do. It has released HRK 6.5 billion to the Government, which the banks had to keep aside if times get tough. What is being done with that money? They are lending it to the state. How? At what interest rate? That’s what I’m waiting to hear. If the interest rate is more than one percent, it is profiteering because at the moment no one can get such good rates except for big pharma and wholesalers whom the state owes and as a result pays abhorrent interest. It should not only be taken into account who is making the money and at whose expense, but also what should be done with the loans and what interest is being paid. The banks will again profit from the crisis.

Do you think the scenario from 2008 will be repeated?

It will be repeated if we do nothing… Decisions will have to be made. I have made decisions in my career – wrong ones as well. It’s really difficult now. And it’s good that the Government has the broadest possible support in the political spectrum, i.e. from representatives of the people. It’s not the crisis management team, it’s the members of Parliament and the Government – they are the authorities. The broader the support for their measures, the better.

All the better, because if tomorrow someone initiates legal proceedings against Croatia for causing damage it will be possible to say that we all stood behind these measures, the entire Parliament. That is why I believe that some of the measures that are being implemented, which are justified and generally the same throughout Europe, should be endorsed in the form of a catalogue of measures in Parliament. And then you know what’s at hand. You can tie a boat or ship with a rope, you can throw a 10-pound anchor, or you can tie it to a corpo morte – a concrete block of one tonne. You’re safe there.

So, I call for a two-thirds majority for all measures being implemented without a two-thirds majority, as long as they affect human rights and liberties. The two-thirds majority is a corpo morte, and here we have full confidence that tomorrow no one will reproach us for any reason. That is why I don’t understand why this hasn’t been done – and it can still be done.

Wage cuts have been announced. There is talk of solidarity, a balanced distribution of the burden resulting from the crisis. Do you think the government and public sectors should bear the burden?

I first said, commenting on someone’s ludicrous proposal that everyone should go on the minimum wage, that this wasn’t suggested by an intelligent person. A week later I said that in the public sector we should define what part of this sector should participate in a wage reduction. Then I saw some analyses, first and foremost by the Institute of Public Finance – I saw the figures, the figures from the experts, the numbers. Ultimately, when you set aside those wages that you can’t reduce – without now listing all of them – because that would be absurd, and bearing in mind that the public sector employs 250,000 people in total, you end up with very minor savings, but there’s also one other thing: the state is now borrowing and will have to repay this debt. The state finally started to gradually pay its debt back in 2015 and it was increasingly doing so, and the share of the debt in the GDP was decreasing. What’s happening now? The state needs to borrow and that’s fine, the situation requires this, but once this crisis is over, the Government will have to repay this debt, which means that people working in the public sector will see their next raise in the distant future. That’s why it makes no sense to reduce their pay twice. We will do twice the damage. Solidarity is one thing, but sound economic logic is another matter. Some will now say that there are many who are like parasites in the system, that there are too many employees in the counties. And there are too many of those who are quite often exploiting the system. However, here we are talking about 15,000 people. We must select the right measure and at the same time make sure that we do not cause collateral or even direct damage.

Do you think the Government is doing a good job?

At the moment, yes. Ask me again in two or three weeks and I’ll be very happy if I can say that this is it now. That would mean the crisis has stopped and there is no more need to talk about it. But if we don’t go back to living as we used to, then we will have to talk about some other measures, not just us, but everyone.

Which measures?

More restrictive measures. We just aren’t producing, nobody is producing. We are not selling our services, which are an important part of our economy and will remain so. Our country’s balance of payments is at a fairly stable level because we export poorly, although we do sell a lot of relatively expensive services. Germany is not producing. Everyone is standing still. Some may claim that they are selling baked pastries and meat patés very well, but they have 100 articles out of which half won’t sell because nobody is buying, and the supply chain is under disruption because tin cans aren’t being made, since the factories in Italy have ceased production.

You said there would be profiteers in this environment?  

Well, it will be the banks – that’s what I’m telling you. That must not be so. It doesn’t have to be like under sharia law, and it can’t be… The Government must act here and I am sure that it will, but it cannot do everything at once.

Can this be an opportunity for a new start, a new paradigm?

Well, we can have a new paradigm for Zagreb, to finally put things in order in the Lower Town, which may not be home to many people in the context of the entire country, but it is important. Actually, that is now of secondary importance. My house was also shaking (from the earthquake) in the old part of town. It is food for thought, it is not comfortable, but the coronavirus is a bigger problem right now. There are many issues for which we do not have a solution, but we get over this and life goes on. In January 2017, it was calculated that there were 6500 deaths during that month. However, a year earlier the January figure stood at 4500. What accounts for this difference? 2000 more deaths. It was not due to car accidents or suicides. 2000 people above average died. It’s a scary figure that we knew about, yet no one responded. This could have been due to an epidemic of a more severe flu, because in this part of the season there are always more deaths. Hence the calculated figure, also because we do not test for the flu. But when you see that 45% more people died in a given period than what is usual for a 10-year average for that month, something has happened and we don’t know what.

How much will the epidemic change global circumstances?

People will be scared and there is no reason to talk about how each of us feels about this personally – you, my mother, wife or friends. People are traumatized by this; it is difficult to be rational right now when people are becoming burdened with debts and especially when people’s health and the health and lives of their loved ones are in danger. It will take time for us to begin to get over this. As the saying goes, if you saw one pandemic, you saw that pandemic – don’t compare it too much to others.

How do you comment on the fact that the Zagreb municipal authorities have not reacted well after the earthquake?

The army came out and 300 professional soldiers ended up cleaning the debris from the streets. That’s not what the army is supposed to do, and the City could have handled that without their help. Every day after the earthquake, chimneys continue to collapse because of the damage and no one is clearing the debris from the streets anymore. I think that the City has the resources to clean up ten times as much without anyone noticing.

Structural engineers and architects are volunteering, but they have warned that no plan is in place.

This is the responsibility of the City of Zagreb. I hope that (whoever will be in power in Zagreb and lead the reconstruction), in which the state will have to give to the people and not to (municipal leaders and their associates, will act responsibly and give to the people) in the way we have given to the people in Gunja. Back then as Prime Minister, I have always asked myself what would happen if the embankments had also collapsed in Slavonski Brod, where this almost occurred, or in Slavonski Šamac – what would happen if they all broke and all those areas ended up under water.

Who is the priority?

The people should be the priority.

Will it be that way?

Now you’re asking me to say something about the mayor. I won’t do that. I talked about that in the campaign, my views and arguments are known. However, (I don’t want this) to fall on the backs of people who left their apartments. A friend of mine is in Osijek at his girlfriend’s place… because he had to house his parents – whose apartment in Mesnička Street fell apart and who do not have the money to rent a place or purchase something better – in his own apartment at Kvatrić Square.

The Government adopts laws but there is criticism from the experts – must a new law be adopted in every emergency?

This is not just any emergency situation, this is a very significant emergency and precisely as a result of this the insurance companies are charging very high rates for earthquake insurance. You can be insured against anything. In Gunja, for instance, no one had insurance against flooding, although they could have been insured for very little money. Those who were insured, five people or so, got nothing from the state. Unjust, as a matter of fact. If you are insured from an earthquake, the insurer knows that everyone will knock at his door, which is why premiums there are three to four times higher than premiums for flood insurance, pipe ruptures or fires. That’s why people didn’t get insured – it was too expensive; they didn’t maintain their buildings properly because it was too expensive. I have personal experience with how much it costs to refurbish one square meter of a facade in Zagreb and how much it costs to renovate a square meter of a house on an island where they have to bring in workers – there’s a cost, but the difference is fivefold.

Someone in Zagreb is stealing, someone is trying to take money. I dealt with this in my own apartment building. A cartel is out there where they aren’t necessarily stealing, but their way of working is “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

Do you think Milan Bandić is part of that cartel?

I’m not saying that, I’m just wondering out loud. This could have been resolved a long time ago. It is impossible that a building in Zagreb – which has no stylistic features and is not protected, and there are just 600 such older buildings in Zagreb – it’s impossible that a square meter for such a building cost HRK 1000 ten years ago and that the same service cost HRK 200 on the coast. That’s impossible.

Members of the Government have donated their salaries for rebuilding efforts in Zagreb, will you do the same?

I talked about this some ten days ago. I think I will give that money for the fight against the coronavirus because, despite the fact that I am from Zagreb and live in the city center, the fight against the pandemic affects all of Croatia.

What about civil liberties in times of emergency?

I’m glad you used that term because this is an emergency, but Parliament continues its work and that does not mean that I am taking on any powers. I have said this and I will say it again, because I think it is in our interest not to bang our heads against the wall for not having taken all measures needed to protect our material interests as a state. All that is being done needs to be strengthened by a two-thirds decision of the members of Parliament, which is afterwards convening continuously.  

We have banned the movement of all citizens across Croatia much more rigorously than is stipulated by any law in effect. You have the law on protecting the population from health threats specifying the Health Minister’s enormous powers albeit with certain disclaimers such as “on the proposal of” and “with the approval of,” but the Minister of Health is the central individual who can do anything. For some reason, we have formed the crisis management team where the Minister of Health is a member, but the law stipulates a whole range of measures that include a quarantine and prohibition of movement. I know that at the time the lawmakers could not foresee the reasons behind adopting the law – a situation in which the whole world would enter a lockdown. This is a few steps beyond that, and that is exactly why (the measures) need to be bolstered by a two-thirds decision of the MPs who are ready to give their support.

But the Minister of Internal Affairs, who heads the crisis management team, says Parliament cannot meet constantly and the team must make quick decisions on a daily basis.

Parliament does not have to convene on a daily basis, but it is working. It is about the Parliament making a decision on extraordinary conditions due to a natural disaster, and the virus does come from nature. You have a situation where Parliament makes a decision and adopts a catalogue of measures in which it says that a certain body can do certain things in a period of two months and after that we meet again. You see that the minister’s objections, if he has any, do not stand here because no one is in anyone’s way. You do this to protect yourself tomorrow from malicious lawsuits of those who could claim to have suffered damages. Tie yourself to a concrete block and not with a thin thread because you will end up on another island, shattered. 

There were some calls for the Parliament to empower the Government.

This is impossible because then the President of the Republic would have to become involved, which is unnecessary and impossible in this situation. Go ahead, lock me up in the basement. I’m not the one standing in the way of anyone. I have said, ‘listen to the Government’, implying a clean legal situation in which the Government is in charge. The crisis management team is… not the best solution from a legal perspective, not for any political party or for me as the recently elected President.

The Government has not given up on making amendments to the Law on Electronic Communications.

I was telling you half an hour ago about the Google Mobility app, through which 90% of people who own smartphones are in effect willingly monitored. I think I’ve been excluded from that. Someone erred due to a major delay. It’s very important, but the law won’t make a difference. Someone obviously has a fixed idea that this bill must be pushed through at all costs. I expect someone who stands behind it to say that we are all doomed if the bill is not passed within three days. However, we are stubbornly insisting on the second reading of the bill so that someone may empower the authorities. This is not a clean job and is probably the only thing that the Parliament would not approve by a two-thirds majority, but it seems we are fine with that.

The Speaker of Parliament asked for the opinion of the Constitutional Court.

Why the Constitutional Court, when you have that instrument yourself, why get the Constitutional Court involved? He could have opined and didn’t; the judge delivered his opinion – atypical. I mentioned this five days ago as well, just not in such a direct fashion. Nobody is under threat here and now I warn of possible harm – people who will claim their rights that can be justifiably excluded. You have another example: the law on protecting the population from health threats, which outlines very precisely the powers of the Health Minister to make restrictive decisions. One is setting up a quarantine and another pertains to restricting movement, but he established the crisis management team and I don’t know on what basis.

People to be covered by tracking – and at present this includes all Croatian citizens – have the right to compensation. This (measure) is actionable, why expose oneself to unnecessary risks. Adopt the measure by a two-thirds majority and it’s a done deal. It’s not just about people who are in self-isolation. Tomorrow you can come up with an idea and say that damage was inflicted upon me in some way, that profit was lost – I don’t see the legal basis for this.

You are opposed to the Law on Electronic Communications being amended?

I don’t know who can wholeheartedly support such a measure at all. I would expect those who propose it to cry from the top of their lungs that we will all die if that law and those amendments are not adopted as soon as possible. But no, we are seeing a dogged determination to secure a second reading, I guess to wear people down so they give up. This indicates to me that the sponsor of the bill has suspicious motives. Why in God’s name, who needs that? And (tracking would be with the consent) of the person tracked. Why? What is the purpose of the measure if the consent of the person tracked is required? That intention has not even been explained, and it must be. Why not say instead that we want to track everything – but then you provoke the people’s revolt. Why not put some tracking device on those individuals you need to monitor? This is the only thing I find problematic.

The soldiers are returning from Afghanistan?

I said they would come back before they left and that’s it.

Some background information on that?

The background is – you know what I was saying in the campaign. The Americans signed an agreement with the Taliban and this is the result. Now we don’t even need those 100 (troops) – let no one hold me to this number – because every soldier is a human being and these (troops) are not needed either. They got there, they unpacked and they’re coming back. I am glad I was right because our soldiers aren’t somewhere where they don’t belong. Their task is also not to shovel around downtown Zagreb. They are professional guards division soldiers, career soldiers, and there are more serious tasks for them out there.

SOURCE: N1 TELEVISION