Croatia’s New Leader Pledges Exit from Crisis

The leader of the Kukuriku coalition that won Croatia's December 4 parliamentary elections, said “pulling Croatia out of crisis” was his priority, after being designated Croatia’s next Prime Minister by President Ivo Josipovic Wednesday.

“We have to pull Croatia out of crisis, and economic growth is the only way to do that,” Zoran Milanovic said after Josipovic officially named him Prime Minister designate.

Josipovic acted following the issue of the final election results on Tuesday afternoon. These gave the centre-left Kukuriku coalition 80 out of 151 seats in parliament, four more seats than are needed to form a majority.

Media reports say the new ministerial team could be formed next week and hold its first session on January 3.

The election winners have said adopting a state budget and holding a referendum on EU accession will be among the first tasks of the new government.  Croatia signed its accession treaty with the European Union on December 9

Milanovic announced that the budget will be reduced and a 2012 budget adopted by the end of March, if not earlier.

“The crisis is deep, so the budget has to serve growth and social needs… Croatia has to control public spending, but not to cut out ‘living tissue’,” he said.

Media reports predict that the budget could be cut by 2.5 per cent, or by 3.5 billion kuna [500 million euro]. Croatia's current annual budget deficit is about 6 per cent of GDP.