Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Wednesday he was not satisfied with the pace of post-earthquake reconstruction but that he was doing everything to step it up, dismissing MP Domagoj Hajdukovic's claim that Croatia would fail to utilise the EU funds received for that purpose.

“It’s slower than I wanted,” Plenkovic said during question time, adding that it is everyone’s task to step up the reconstruction.

He said 6,000 buildings in the quake-hit Banovina region were already reconstructed, that seismic retrofitting, the building of replacement houses and reconstruction done by owners were under way, and that affected citizens were receiving aid.

Plenkovic dismissed Social Democrat MP Hajdukovic’s claim that Construction Minister Ivan Paladina was no longer “up to” implementing the reconstruction.

Paladina said he “absolutely” was, that Croatia would spend the bulk of the EU funds received for that purpose and “we’ll try to spend it all.”

Census

MP Marijan Pavlicek of the Sovereignists said the 2021 census proved that Croatia was becoming a country of old people and that the pension system would collapse.

Plenkovic said the census was a result of more deaths than births and easier emigration since Croatia joined the EU, and mentioned the government’s population policies, including the Slavonia-Baranja-Srijem project and outlays for regional development.

Security

Responding to a question from MP Ante Sanader of the ruling HDZ about the state of security, Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said all European statistics showed that Croatia was a safe country.

Regarding radicalism and extremism, Bozinovic said there was a trend of creating a public opinion that everything was bad and everyone a criminal, which made certain individuals resort to radical methods.

“The more we send such messages, which are generalised, unverified and which go towards insulting persons and hate speech, the more such individuals we will have,” he added.