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Zagreb - Lawmakers agreed on Thursday on the need for a broad debate on the introduction of the euro currency in Croatia and a debate in Parliament on amendments to the Law on the Croatian National Bank and on Law on Credit Institutions will contribute in that regard.
Apart from enabling close cooperation to be established between the European Central Bank (ECB) and Croatian National Bank (HNB), amendments to the legislation also serve as a way of accessing the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) and will additionally harmonise provisions that enter into force on the day the euro is introduced as the official currency in Croatia, Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said presenting the bills of amendments in Parliament.
"I hope that today's debate of these two bills will additionally contribute to the public debate on the euro and that pro and con arguments will be presented," Marić said.
He underscored that when Croatia had signed the EU accession agreement it had agreed to introduce the euro and the only question was when it could happen.
MP Saša Đujić of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and MP Vesna Pusić (Glas) agreed with Marić and supported the bills whereas MP Miro Bulj (Bridge) and Ivan Lovrinović (Let's Change Croatia) expressed criticism.
Bulj believes that Croatia is still not ready for the euro and that the question of introducing the euro should be put to a referendum. He believes that the proposed amendments will mean that the HNB will lose its sovereignty and become a branch of the European Central Bank.
Lovrinović said that the amendments were in fact being introduced to save the current management at HNB. "The Law on HNB is being amended to prevent the current management of HNB from generating new losses and to introduce a new accounting standard according to which negative exchange rate differences will not be recorded as losses," Lovrinović said and recalled that in 2017 and 2018 the HNB had generated losses in the amount of HRK 3.5 billion.
(€1 = HRK 7.4)