‘Obliviate!’ said Jadranka Kosor, and with a spell reminiscent of Harry Potter, in just ten days managed to make Đuro Popijač forget everything before his appointment as Minister of Economy. This is a well-known tactic of the Prime Minister, who has decided to govern in the style of ‘I invite everyone to join forces and together save the country from the clutches of recession,’ and when non-partisan experts join her, they are no longer visible in public, and their positions, to put it mildly, change by 180 degrees.
Although it was to be expected that the new minister would quickly change his rhetoric because power is power, such a rapid turnaround does not bode well. Not long ago, the former head of the Croatian Employers’ Association demanded an urgent reduction in the number of employees in public administration, a reduction in costs, and an increase in the efficiency of public services (interviews from June 29, August 4, September 22….), only to say a few days after his appointment that civil servants are safe until the crisis passes. In other words, in the most optimistic scenario, there will be no reform of public administration until 2012. If even then.
I do not wish for worker layoffs, and I understand that the same rhetoric cannot be maintained when you are a critic of the government and when you are in power, but I blame the newly appointed minister for one much more important thing. The recently former advocate for employers’ demands stated in an interview with Jutarnji list that his job is much harder than private business. If I were his friend from HUP, I would disown him for that statement. There are several things that are unclear to me in this story. First of all, before the ministerial chair, Popijač led HUP, and before that, Fina. I do not see how those two positions can be declared private business.
