Since MOL, owner of some 49 per cent of Croatia’s energy company INA, is in an worldwide arbitration process over the management rights to INA, and since Karamarko proposed that Croatia pulls out from the process, the Commission established that he breached two articles of the law on preventing conflicts of interest.
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Speaking in parliament shortly before he was ousted, Mr Oreskovic said: “Unfortunately, instead of discussing reforms. we discuss this no-confidence motion”.
The vote will delay planned reforms in the European Union’s newest member, whose economy – which only last year emerged from a six-year recession – remains one of EU’s weakest.
LONDON, June 16 The cost of insuring exposure to debt from Croatia rose to its highest level in more than two months on Thursday ahead of a no-confidence vote that could spell the end of technocrat Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic’s government.
“Someone did not like that”, Oreskovic said, referring to Karamarko. Since the HDZ’s Patriotic Coalition, as well as the SDP will vote against Oreskovic, his removal and the government’s fall is expected.
“The real reason (for the no-confidence vote) is because I, in an effort to protect national interests, started working on the solution of the MOL-INA dispute through continuation of the arbitration and by starting new negotiations which obviously was not what some people wanted”.
MOL and Croatia jointly run the country’s energy firm INA but are at odds over management rights and investment policy.
A snap election will be called if a new cabinet can not be formed within 30 days.
The crisis began after the opposition in parliament requested a vote to oust Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Karamarko – the HDZ leader and now senior partner in the governing coalition – after a state commission found a conflict of interest due to his relations with a lobbyist for Hungarian state oil company MOL.
The HDZ has voiced confidence it can build a new parliamentary majority, but analysts believe this will be hard to achieve without Most. In 2014, a court censured HDZ for graft and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader was convicted of bribery and abuse of power in a case that will be retried.
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The main opposition party, the Social Democrats, have said they will support Thursday’s no-confidence motion as they want a snap election as soon as possible.
