President Milanović in Delnice: Fight for Every Euro from EU Funds According to the Rules
The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović attended the formal session of the Town of Delnice’s Municipal Council on the occasion of Municipal Day and St. John the Baptist Parish Day, its patron saint.
In his address President Milanović recalled his skiing trips to Delnice during his winter holidays saying that only today he is aware of the feeling of peculiarity and remoteness.
He referred to the Gorski Kotar residents’ discontent due to its status of more developed region that Gorski Kotar has today, based on European Union standards and criteria. The President reminded how that status was given to them during his government’s term in faith that it was absolutely right and just, but added: “Let them change it, and we’ll bring it back to what it used to be. It is a well-known fact why this measure was adopted and what the compensatory mechanisms should have been. If it’s not good, change it”.
He also talked about the absorption of resources from the European funds. “How much money was spent so far, I don’t know and I won’t lecture the County, but at one moment you said, probably in good faith, that European money shouldn’t be wasted. It should be wasted, that’s the essence, the significance, the backbone, the connective tissue of our existence in the European Union, at this moment”, the President noted. He told them to fight for every euro from EU funds according to the rules.
“Today we’re not in the European Union for reasons of brotherhood, of the same religion, of the same view on society, life, family”, President Milanović said, underlying that we surrendered a large part of our autonomy and sovereignty to Brussels consciously, not because we think that they know better than us what is good for us, how our social system, our health care should look, to give them the authority and the possibility to expand into our autonomy, in our intimate area of decision-making about how we will live and spend. “No, we know best. And what’s left? Money. Spend that money as well as you know, and I would, not as the president, but as a Croatian citizen, simply want to see who is responsible for every million or fifty million euros that we didn’t take advantage of or use up. That’s our money, that is the sense of our membership in the European Union”, President Milanović stated.
He said that we must not allow a moral panic to overcome us, namely that we will not be around tomorrow, that children will not be born and that we have no work force. “There were more of us fifty years ago than ever before and that will ever be later in history. We entered a comfort zone of great expectations. Today, the standard in Delnice is better in every aspect than during socialism and full employment. Now it’s better. It’s better in many areas in Croatia”, President Milanović said, referring to the work force issue. “We have to be cautious, given that we are a small, delicate, vulnerable society to take into account who the immigrants are, where they come from. I’m aware of the problems that an imprudent immigration can bring in a small community of which history and the present tell us at every step. Immigration will be necessary and ultimately, under our own rules, we’ll be dealing again with those with whom we have had conflicts, quarrels or wars. It’s time to start working better, earning more and getting rich”, President Milanović concluded.
Speaking at the ceremony organized on the occasion of Municipal Day of the Town of Delnice and St. John the Baptist Parish Day, its patron saint, in addition to President Milanović were the President of the Municipal Council of the Town of Delnice Ivana Pečnik Kastner, the Mayor of the Town of Delnice Katarina Mihelčić, the Deputy County Prefect of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County Dražen Mufić, the envoy of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia and State Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy Majda Burić, as well as the envoy of the Speaker of the Croatian Parliament and Member of the Croatian Parliament and mayor of the Town of Bakar Tomislav Klarić.
Alongside President Milanović was the Adviser of the President of the Republic of Croatia for Human Rights and Civil Society Melita Mulić.
PHOTO: Office of the President of Republic of Croatia / Ana Marija Katić