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Zagreb - Ahead of a parliamentary debate on a report on the use of EU funds and aid programmes in the period from 1 January to 30 June 2021, Members of Parliament on Friday warned about poor results in the absorption of money from EU funds.
Several party groups asked for a break before the debate, warning about the situation at the Central Finance and Contracting Agency (SAFU), poor results in the absorption of EU funds and high unemployment figures.
Bridge MP Nikola Grmoja warned that SAFU was rigging its recruitment and that people who had never worked with EU funds were being employed.
Karatina Peović (HSS/RF) said that EU funds should serve for cohesion and convergence, warning that that was not happening "because we live in a two-speed Europe" in which Croatia lags behind in all possible indicators.
The trade deficit with the EU is around HRK 60 billion and in 2020 it exceeded HRK 64 billion, Peović said.
She expressed dissatisfaction with the restoration of what she described as a controversial programme of community investment, noting that the Church would again be allocated billions of kuna from the state budget and recalling that of the HRK 58 million made available under that programme, 53 million had been allocated to parishes in a non-transparent procedure.
Peović's statement drew responses from Sovereignists MP Marijan Pavliček and independent MP Hrvoje Zekanović, who said that she was insulting the Catholic Church while disregarding efforts by its Caritas charity in helping those in need.
Pointing to the benefits of EU funds for Croatia, Marko Pavić of the ruling HDZ party said that the €25 billion for the coming period "did not come out of nowhere" and that the government led by Andrej Plenković deserved credit for it.
He recalled that during his visit to Zagreb on Thursday, EC Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said that Croatia was among the best performers in the EU in terms of using funds under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
Unlike Pavić, MP Dario Zurovec (Focus/Independents) believes the coming period of using EU funds would be a missed opportunity just like the previous one.
"Unfortunately, a lot of projects were not implemented. Money might have arrived, but we also had to return it in a lot of cases," he said, noting that data on the amount of money that had to be returned was not entirely transparent.
Marin Lerotić of the IDS said that only 65% of the funds had been absorbed from the previous financial envelope, warning that Croatia was possibly the only country to have asked the EU Solidarity Fund for an extension of the deadline to use the allocated funds, with only 4% of the €750 million made available to it having been spent so far.
Marina Opačak Bilić of the Social Democrats warned about the disastrous consequences of a hailstorm that hit the northwestern region of Zagorje on Thursday, noting that the damage could have been prevented if the system of decision-making had not failed.