During his visit to Istria County on Sunday, President Ivo Josipovic was asked by reporters to comment on the election platforms of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the opposition coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He said he had noticed a difference between their programmes, but declined to elaborate, citing the constitutional position of the President of the Republic.
"I want to be completely neutral, which implies not commenting on the election campaign," Josipovic said, adding that he hoped that people would prefer "those who behave in a civilised manner and offer a future, rather than talk about historical events or irrelevant things."
When asked to comment on the statement by Milorad Pupovac of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), a junior partner in the ruling coalition, who had said that the HDZ had the indictments against Tomislav Mercep and others three months ago and that it made them public only now as part of the election campaign, Josipovic said he could not claim with certainty that it was part of anyone's campaign, but that he knew that "the indictments arrived in August."
Responding to a question about the government-sponsored bill to declare null and void the legal acts of the defunct Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), the former Yugoslav federation and the Republic of Serbia, Josipovic said he thought that the bill would not achieve the desired effect.
"This is clearly a political message, given the fact that the indictments did not follow the agreed procedure, but that's no way to solve problems," he said, adding that it was questionable whether the bill was in accord with international law. He said that it would create problems because "some people named in those indictments won't know it and will have problems when travelling abroad."
"The only way is to sit at the negotiating table and reach a long-term agreement under which no one who committed war crimes will evade justice. That is important because it will prevent war crimes prosecution being politicised and used for any political purposes," the President said.
Josipovic was in Istria to open the white truffle show "Zigante Truffle Days" in Livade, which brought together local producers of wine, extra virgin olive oil and honey. Before that, he visited the headquarters and factory of the Zigante Tartufi company in nearby Plovanija.
The factory was built in 2006, partly with funds from the European Union's SAPARD programme. It is equipped with state-of-the-art machines for truffle processing and packaging. The investment exceeded 20 million kuna, of which 5.5 million kuna came from the SAPARD programme.
"This factory is an excellent example of how EU funds can be used," Josipovic said, adding that Croatia should have drawn much more funds from EU pre-accession programmes.
