Page 12 - bne IntelliNews SE Outlook Regions 2024

or if the country will face a new snap general election in early 2025.
1.4 Politics - Croatia
Croatia will hold a general election in 2024 and political tensions between rival parties have already started escalating. The situation has worsened due to several corruption scandals involving top members of the ruling HDZ party led by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.
In March, Plenkovic’s government survived yet another no-confidence vote. That was expected as the HDZ has a stable majority in parliament.
In July, opposition parties in parliament urged parliament to hold an extraordinary session over a scandal related to the sale of gas at below market prices. HEP had been selling excess natural gas at a lower price than the purchase price it had paid. Allegedly HEP had been buying natural gas from INA for €47.6 per MWh but was selling what it did not use for €0.01 per MWh, losing up to €500,000 daily.
The police have launched an investigation into the case, while Plenkovic has repeatedly denied any involvement. Despite that, all opposition parties claimed that Plenkovic and the then economy minister Davor Filipovic must have known what was going on.
The government claimed that HEP’s management was in charge of the sale of gas, denying any involvement; the company’s management has since been changed.
In November, Plenkovic fired defence minister Mario Banozic after he was involved in a car crash that killed one person. Local media reported that Banozic might be charged with causing the crash. His lawyer, Fran Olujic, said as quoted by Total Croatia that it was too early to know what the sentence could be as it is yet to be determined whether the crash was caused by Banozic.
If the crash was caused by Banozic due to negligence, he could get between one and eight years in prison, while if the authorities determine it was because of intentional actions, the prison sentence is between three and fifteen years.
In December, Plenkovic’s government was hit by another corruption scandal and the prime minister fired Filipovic and his special advisor, Jurica Lovrincevic, after the Nacional weekly revealed that Lovrincevic offered to the Zagreb-based local television network Mreza TV to lease advertising space to a number of state companies and institutions, in return receiving back half of the agreed amount. The weekly released an audio recording of a conversation between Lovrincevic and a
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