New Deputy PM and Economy Minister comment on Agrokor

Ilustracija

The new Deputy Prime Minister, Tomislav Tolusic, and the new Economy Minister, Darko Horvat, gave statements to the media on Friday, shortly after the parliament confirmed their posts.

Both Tolusic and Horvat’s appointments were confirmed in the government with 77 votes in favour.

I coordinate the economy aspect in the government. I think that, apart of the Agrokor crisis, the far more important thing is the medium term and long term care of the national reform programme, Tolusic said.

He added that the Agrokor group had its crisis manager who was in charge of the process, along with the creditors’ council, and that the major share of the work was in their hands.

“I am not a detective, I do not want to deal with these things,” Tolusic said when asked to comment on the constant e-mail leaks in the so-called Hotmail affair and their effect on the process of reaching an agreement in Agrokor.

Earlier on Friday, the news portal Index.hr published new e-mails involving correspondence between various consultants and former Economy Minister Martina Dalic on the drafting of Lex Agrokor, a law on state-appointed crisis management, in 2017.

According to Index.hr, the new e-mails may show that some of Agrokor’s suppliers and creditors were put in a favoured position by the emergency administration which took over the company to save it from bankruptcy.

“I should say again, without this law (Lex Agrokor) today there would be no Agrokor, Konzum, Belje, or Vupik companies… there would be some hundred thousand unemployed people and a collapse of the economy.

The new Economy Minister said he agreed with Tolusic’s statement on Agrokor, and that he would become involved in the situation within the next 2 weeks.

“We wish that the story be over by July 10,” Horvat said, adding that he did not want to comment on the new e-mails because he did not wish to comment on something he had not seen yet.

July 10 marks the final deadline for the state-appointed crisis management of Agrokor to reach an agreement with the company’s creditors and suppliers in order to avoid bankruptcy.

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