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Politics

Croatian government survives no-confidence vote

November 11, 2017

The Croatian government has successfully weathered a no-confidence vote triggered by the opposition. It faced claims that its bailout of a large private company lacked transparency.

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Kroatien Parlament
Image: picture-alliance/Pixsell/S. Strukic

The Croatian parliament on Saturday voted to keep the center-right government in power after a no-confidence vote was called amid opposition claims that it had favored some creditors above others in its bailout of food and retail company Agrokor.

Fifty-nine members were in favor of ousting the Cabinet, but they were comfortably outvoted by 78 others in the 151-seat parliament in a ballot preceded by 12 hours of debate.

The government has faced accusations that it displayed a lack of transparency as it bailed out Agrokor, the biggest retailer in the Balkans, which had plunged into a debt crisis while trying to rapidly expand its activities.

Deep financial trouble

The company, which is the most important employer in the Balkan region and Croatia's largest enterprise, had accrued debt of some 6 billion euros ($7 billion) over recent years.

Ivica Todoric
Todoric is suspected of falsifying accountsImage: Getty Images/AFP/A. Dennis

Agrokor's founder, Ivica Todoric, is now awaiting extradition in London after turning himself in to UK police last week while under a European arrest warrant.

Croatia is currently ruled by a coalition under Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic that consists of his conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the liberal Croatian People's Party (HNS), representatives of national minorities and a few minor parties.

tj/rc (Reuters, AP)