Plenković previously announced that the Government will have 16 ministries instead of 20 and will have four deputy prime ministers. Alongside the current Davor Božinović and Zdravko Marić the new deputy prime ministers will be Tomo Medved and Boris Milošević (SDSS).
Medved is expected to remain the Minister of Croatian Veterans, as well as Davor Božinović, who will continue to serve as the Minister of the Interior. The Ministry of Finance will still be led by Zdravko Marić, while Nikolina Brnjac will head the Ministry of Tourism and Sports.
The Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds will be led by Nataša Tramišak, and the Ministry of Science and Education Radovan Fuchs. At the helm of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development, which will include the sectors of economy, energy, climate change, and environmental protection, will be Tomislav Ćorić, while the Ministry of Construction, Spatial Planning, and State Property will be led by Darko Horvat.
The new Minister of Defense is expected to be Mario Banožić, and Ivan Malenica will lead the merged ministries of administration and justice. The sectors of labor and the pension system, as well as social policy, will also be merged, with Josip Aladrović at the head of that ministry. Minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek will lead the Ministry of Culture and Media, the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs will continue to be Gordan Grlić Radman, and Vili Beroš will remain the Minister of Health. Marija Vučković will remain the Minister of Agriculture, while Oleg Butković will be the Minister of the Sea, Transport, and Infrastructure.
The Presidency and National Council will also decide on the establishment of the HDZ Club of Representatives.
Frka Petešić: The Number of Local Officials Will Be Reduced
The Head of the Prime Minister’s Office Zvonimir Frka-Petešić said on Sunday that the names of the 16 ministers will be presented by Andrej Plenković to the party bodies on Monday and then to the public, adding that there are plans to reduce the number of local officials.
Petešić stated on RTL Danas that this is the optimal number of ministries and that the figure of 15 or 16 ministries is the European average.
– The Prime Minister opted for the number 16; the idea is to functionally merge ministries – he emphasized.
Speaking about the merging of certain ministries, such as economy, energy, and environmental protection, he explained that the goal is to functionally merge ministries.
– The idea is to functionally merge ministries whose sectors are sometimes difficult to arbitrate, and it is easier when one minister handles it rather than going into arduous negotiations and having the Prime Minister arbitrate – said Frka Petešić.
Regarding the ministries of defense and veterans, he stated that they were not merged because they deal with quite different matters.
'- The Ministry of Defense today has a completely different role – to modernize the entire defense and homeland security system, and NATO’s standard is that a civilian should be at the head of that sector – he added.
He also dismissed speculations that the ministries were not merged due to conceding a deputy prime minister position to the SDSS.
As for the objections that a smaller number of ministries will not mean greater savings, Frka-Petešić said that it is necessary to first distinguish that when talking about around 300,000 employees in Croatia – there is public administration (68,000 people employed in healthcare, 85,000 people employed in education and science, 25,000 police officers…), local administration (where a quarter of the total number works), and state administration.
In all ministries, he added, there are just over 13,000 people working, and reducing a few hundred people in certain ministries will not significantly affect the total number of state and local officials.
What is in the Government’s program is that, he emphasized, among the first measures, the number of local officials, which is around 2,000, will be halved in the very near future, and the number of representatives in local representative bodies will be reduced by one-fifth, and there will be a move towards the functional merging of municipalities – merging those municipalities that may struggle financially to operate independently.
He announced that on Thursday in the Croatian Parliament, the program of the Government will be fully presented by the mandate holder Andrej Plenković.
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