The prime minister, Andrej Plenković, stated on Monday that he would respond politically to the motion of no confidence, which is on the agenda of the Croatian Parliament (Sabor) on Tuesday. He stated that he would respond to the pamphlets politically.
Plenković stated that the opposition is harming the Ličko-Senjska County. 'The opposition is not interested in Gospić, in the health of citizens, or in protecting the environment; they are interested in destabilising and toppling the government,' the prime minister said. He added that the government would resolve the problem, which had not been caused by the government but by individuals, who would be held accountable.
Referring to the meeting of the Scientific Council for technical support in the remediation of illegally dumped waste, Plenković said that it was established that the remediation was proceeding and that the non-hazardous waste in bags was being removed gradually without posing a danger to human health, whether in Koromačno or Našice. He further stated that every bag was being analysed and that the Croatian government, nor the cement manufacturers, would ever do anything that would endanger people's health.
'You would have to be either wicked or extremely malicious to launch a campaign in the public sphere that declares all of Lik as poisonous, and to accuse the government of treason, while causing direct economic damage to agricultural entities in the region of Lik,' Plenković said. He also stated that the opposition should apologise to all the family farms in the Ličko-Senjska County, as they were declaring the soil and the air, and the products, to be poisonous.
In response to a journalistic question about the possibility that the company under investigation by the State Attorney's Office, which was allegedly delivering waste, might ultimately be the one to remediate it, Plenković responded that the company in question should explain itself. He added that it was a consortium of five legal entities, not one, and that one should wait for the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund to complete its evaluation process. In response to the question of whether there was a legal possibility to exclude the company CE-ZA-R from the process given that it was under investigation, while the rest of the consortium continued with the work, he responded that 'all options are on the table'.
Asked about the expectations from the meeting of the Committee on National Security on the topic of waste, Plenković said that the meeting should be interpreted by those who were presenting incomplete data to the public after the meeting. 'The aim of all these interventions is to create chaos. That is the point. The aim of the intervention is to create chaos, not to solve the problem,' he said. He told the media that they had a huge responsibility and that they did not have the role of creating chaos, but rather of informing the Croatian public objectively.
Plenković stated that in the ten years of the mandate, the opposition had 43 interpellations and questions of no confidence, of which 26 were rejected, nine were not discussed as the issue was considered closed, one was withdrawn, and seven were in the process. 'The instruments that the opposition uses, we are already used to following, and naturally, we will respond to them. All in all, it is expected,' he said.
The SDP had initiated the removal of the prime minister, demanding his resignation due to the cases of illegal dumping of hazardous waste. Plenković responded to this by stating that it was a false story and a narrative that people were being poisoned, calling it a shameless move by actors in the opposition. 'You have to be wicked or malicious to do such a thing,' he said, adding that the company CE-ZA-R was owned by Petar Pribić and that a legal solution would always be found to complete the process.
