Deputy PM Božinović accuses President Milanović of working against Croatia's interests

Reactions to Wednesday's "Ukraine - Southeast Europe" summit continue in Croatia. The 3rd summit of its kind was held in Dubrovnik with the goal of rallying political support for Ukraine and securing financial and military handouts for Kiev.

Reactions to Wednesday's "Ukraine - Southeast Europe" summit and President Zoran Milanović's recent statement that he will not sign off on government's decision to send Croatian military personnel to a NATO mission in support of Ukraine continued on Saturday, with Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Davor Božinović accusing the president of working against Croatia's national interests: "If you're asking whose interests President Milanović is working for, he definitely isn't working for the interests of the NATO alliance, and I would say he's not working for Croatia's deepest national interests, and that is stability and prosperity."

Many have taken issue with the fact that President Milanović wasn't invited to the Dubrovnik summit, while Serbian President, Aleksandar Vučić, who used the venue to make incendiary statements about the Homeland War, was invited. Možemo MP Sandra Benčić says the entire situation could have easily been avoided: "We know who Vučić is, and one can't expect anything better from him. Some kind of framework should have been agreed on that could have avoided this problem. I think this did a lot of harm, especially for those citizens from the war affected areas, and Dubrovnik is definitely one of those areas."

Dubrovnik Mayor Mato Franković said that it is unfortunate that the Vučić debacle was overshadowing what was achieved during the summit: "For me he was a chetnik before, today and will remain a chetnik forever. Serbia cannot come to terms with its defeat in Dubrovnik and Croatia as a whole. The only small satisfaction I can personally take from this is that all he could do was suffer as he looked at our beautiful Dubrovnik."

Presidential candidate Marija Selak Raspudić also joined in the chorus on Saturday, calling a press conference to comment on claims from Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and Foreign and European Affairs Minister Gordan Grlić Radman that Milanović's re-election campaign is being financed by Russia: "The HDZ could have long ago put impeachment proceedings against the president on the agenda, but it did not, and we need to ask them why. My message is the following; in the coming months the citizens, who are democratically responsible for this task, will have the opportunity to remove him as a result of his actions, and I am confident that they will do so."

Meanwhile, the HDZ's presidential candidate, Dragan Primorac, has also accused President Milanović of being a Russophile. However, when asked to provide evidence to back this claim, he said that the evidence is being collected: "If you take a closer look at what has been happening since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, are you not a little surprised by his behavior, his obvious alignment with Russia, and the fact that he has never once condemned what is happening there? This in spite of the fact that Croatia payed a massive price in the Homeland War. If this is proven to be true, then the consequences for Croatia, for me and all of you, will be far reaching."

Source: HRT