President Ivo Josipovic said on Thursday Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor should relieve of duty Deputy PM and Foreign Affairs and European Integration Minister Gordan Jandrokovic because he was not familiar with the appointment of ambassadors and because, in his public attacks on the institution of the president of the republic, he damaged Croatia's reputation in the world.
Jandrokovic's replacement "is my political opinion because he is damaging the state and Croatia's reputation in the world," Josipovic told a news conference called following the foreign ministry's statements regarding the appointment of Croatia's new diplomatic representatives.
The president, who co-creates the foreign policy with the government, said "it would be normal to relieve of duty a minister who is attacking the president of the republic, isn't familiar with procedure and is saying in public things that aren't correct."
Josipovic said this was a "continuous erosion and undermining of the institution of the president."
"I hope this isn't the government's policy and in a normal state a minister should be held to account for it," he said, adding that these were attempts to drag him into the upcoming election campaign.
Josipovic said the foreign minister was not the equal of the president of the republic and that he understood Jandrokovic's list of ambassadorial nominees as an "initial political proposal."
"What has been sent to me is nothing. I will send the quasi-proposal back and ask Prime Minister Kosor to brief him not to step outside the legal and constitutional order."
Josipovic expects from the government and Kosor a new official proposal as well as the opinion of the relevant parliamentary committee, after which he will decide on the appointments.
Responding to Jandrokovic's criticism that he was stalling with the appointments, Josipovic wondered why time had suddenly become important, given that the terms of many ambassadors and consults had expired long ago.
Josipovic said a third of the nominees were non-career diplomats and that many were just on rotation and did not come back to work at the foreign ministry after their terms of office expired. Asked how many were members of the ruling HDZ party, he said he was not interested in party affiliation.
Josipovic said that, whenever he received the government's list of nominees, his criteria would be that only specially prominent persons could be ambassadors on contract, that terms of office were not be renewed and that after serving abroad, ambassadors came back to work at the foreign ministry, that politically active persons were not be appointed, and that it was not possible for inexperienced diplomats to be appointed to the most prominent ambassadorial positions.
