News

Zagreb - Parliament Speaker Josip Leko on Tuesday sent a message of congratulations to Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic on her election as President, in which he underscored that it would be his pleasure to cooperate in a completely democratic atmosphere in the fight for national interests and further strengthening of the rule of law.

Zagreb - This year's first regular session of parliament will start on January 21 and is scheduled to run for ten weeks, Parliament Speaker Josip Leko announced after a meeting of the parliament's presidency on Tuesday.

Zagreb - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko on Thursday extended his condolences to French National Assembly President Claude Bartolone and Senate President Gerard Larcher on yesterday's terrorist attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

Zagreb - Parliament Speaker Josip Leko sent his Christmas greetings to Croatian citizens wishing them and all of society success and fortune.

Zagreb - In the year drawing to a close, lawmakers spent 103 days in parliament and discussed 373 items on the agenda, adopted 185 laws and parliament Speaker Josip Leko said that parliament had done a proper job this year in fulfilling its constitutional duty.

Zagreb - The Croatian Parliament on Wednesday formally expressed deep dissatisfaction at the decision by the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to grant provisional release to the war crimes indictee, Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Šešelj, and called on the tribunal to withdraw its decision.

Zagreb - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said in Doha on Thursday that the Croatian government would soon form a joint economy committee with Qatar, and told Qatari officials that the investment possibilities in Croatia were big, notably in energy and tourism.

Doha - Croatia wants to attract Qatari investments, notably in energy and tourism, and Croatian construction companies have been invited to intensify their presence in Qatar, Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko and the Qatari emir said in Doha on Wednesday.

Berlin - The Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, Josip Leko, attended a conference in Berlin on Saturday marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Zagreb - Croatia and the Czech Republic push for intensifying parliamentary cooperation, notably regarding the European policy, and for implementing the Treaty of Lisbon which envisages a stronger role for parliaments in government supervision, Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko and Czech Chamber of Deputies Chairman Jan Hamaček said in Zagreb on Thursday.

Zagreb - The member of Parliament representing the Roma minority, Veljko Kajtazi, said on Wednesday that a lot had been done for the Roma language in Croatia over the last three years, expressing hope that during his term in office he would manage to have the Roma language included on the list of minority languages in Croatia.

Zagreb - A round table discussion on war veterans' rights in Parliament on Thursday lasted only 15 fifteen minutes as veterans repeated their demands and walked out of the conference room after introductory remarks by Parliament Speaker Josip Leko and the head of the Fully Disabled Homeland War Veterans Association, Đuro Glogoški.

Zagreb - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko on Sunday afternoon visited the protesting disabled veterans who had been rallying outside the War Veterans' Ministry for seven days in a row, and called on them to come to the parliament building and discuss their problems there, while protesters' representatives responded that they would come to the Sabor only if Prime Minister Zoran Milanović relieved War Veterans Affairs' Minister Predrag Matić and his two closest associates of their duties.

Zagreb - The foundation stone laying ceremony for the future place of worship for members of the Macedonian Orthodox Church was held in Zagreb on Sunday.

Zagreb - The Croatian parliament on Friday unanimously tasked the government with checking the number and authenticity of signatures collected by unions for a referendum on passing a law that would ban the outsourcing of non-core activities in public and state services.

Zagreb - The Croatian Parliament organised Doors Open Day on Sunday on the occasion of Independence Day, observed on October 8.

Zagreb - To mark the Independence Day - 8 October – in memory of the legislators' unanimous decision on 8 October 1991 to sever all ties with the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with Croatia becoming a free and independent state, Citizens Service of the Croatian Parliament will be organizing the Open Day event.

Zagreb - The Croatian Parliament held a special session on Wednesday to mark Independence Day.

Zagreb - Senior Croatian state officials laid wreaths at Zagreb's Mirogoj Cemetery on Independence Day on Wednesday to commemorate all Croatians who had struggled for the freedom and independence of Croatia.

Zagreb - Environment protection, renewables in construction, sustainable tourism and the development of an eco-cities project were some of the topics on the agenda of a meeting of the Union for Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly's Committee on Energy, Environment, and Water, which convened in the Croatian parliament on Monday.

Zagreb - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko in Budapest on Friday pointed out the importance of implementing all flood defence projects planned by the Danube strategy and of cooperation with neighbours in water management.

Orašje - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said on Tuesday that his tour of the Posavina area of northern Bosnia and Herzegovina was "interesting, fruitful and instructive".

Odžak - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said in Odžak, northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Monday that the transport corridor 5C would improve development prospects for that region, announcing participation in developing projects designed to protect the area of Odžak from natural disasters such as floods that recently hit the Bosnian Sava River Valley region.

Domaljevac-Šamac - Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, Josip Leko, who is currently on a two-day visit to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, said on Tuesday that Croatia would consider the possibility of providing assistance to municipalities in the country's northern Posavina region which were severely hit by recent floods.

Tuzla - Bosnia and Herzegovina is more than a partner and neighbour for Croatia and Zagreb will help it on its path towards the European Union, Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said in Tuzla, northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Monday.

Brčko - Croatian Parliament President Josip Leko said on Monday that Brčko District in the northeast of Bosnia and Herzegovina served as an example of peaceful coexistence, announcing that he would advise Croatian business people to invest there.

Tuzla - Local Croats in the northeastern Bosnian city of Tuzla said during a meeting with Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko on Monday that they were committed to contributing to Bosnia and Herzegovina's development and that they wanted to live there on an equal footing with the other two constituent peoples, the Bosniaks and the Serbs.

Zagreb - Trust is key for Europe's southeast to develop, chairmen of foreign policy committees of several Southeast European parliaments said at a meeting in Zagreb on Thursday. This, the fifth such meeting, was attended by Milorad Pupovac of Croatia and his counterparts from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Germany as well as many representatives of the Croatian government and ministries, the European Commission and the European Parliament.

Zagreb - Under amendments to the Penal Code which the Croatian parliament was discussing on Thursday, there will no longer be a statute of limitations for premeditated murder, domestic mental abuse will be outlawed, for a petty offence to be treated as such its value will be lowered, and the criminal offence of defamation will be defined more precisely.

Washington - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko is in the US Congress attending the Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum on terrorist threats, and on the sidelines of the conference he has held bilateral meetings with senior members of Congress, who told him that they considered Croatia a partner country, the Croatian Parliament's press service said on Friday.

Mali Lošinj – European Interparliamentary Conference on sustainable tourism ended today in the town of Mali Lošinj with presentations of experts and panel discussions on cultural tourism and tourism in the function of environmental protection.

Oslo - The problem of Ukraine is an extremely important and tough problem for Europe and shows that threats posed by violations of international law have not disappeared, Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said in Oslo on Friday following a two-day conference of parliament speakers from the Council of Europe member states.

Oslo - Civil society is an important form of extra-institutional opposition, Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said at the European Conference of Presidents of Parliament in Oslo on Friday, adding that there was in Croatia "a sort of rush on referendums by those who are against government decisions."

Zagreb - In the continuation of the European Inter-parliamentary Conference on “Challenges of Sustainable Tourism: Promoting Cultural Heritage and Environmental Protection” presentations were made by Hrvoje Carić (Institute for Tourism, Zagreb, Croatia), Ugo Soragni (Head of Regional Directorate for Cultural Heritage and Landscape of the Veneto Region, Italy), Panos Livadas (Secretary General of the Greek National Tourism Organization, Greece), Matija Franković (Head of State Institute for Nature Protection, Croatia) and Sandra Vlašić (UNDP – Programme Officer of the United Nations Development Programme, Croatia)

Oslo - Europe is faced with many difficult challenges such as millions of jobless people, violations of human rights in parts of the continent, serious breaches of international law and armed conflicts that inflict suffering on civilians, notably in Ukraine, said speakers who opened the European Conference of Presidents of Parliaments in Oslo on Thursday (ECPP).

Zagreb - In the final part of the plenary session, the first part of which was held in Zagreb, the participants were addressed by representatives of international organisations, with the central topic being the importance of integrating different policies in the development of sustainable tourism.

Oslo - Participants in the European Conference of Presidents of Parliaments (ECPP) in Oslo have expressed different positions on the Ukraine crisis and therefore the talks should continue as there is no alternative to talks and to looking for common standards and values, Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said in a statement for Hina in the Norwegian capital on Thursday evening.

Zagreb - The Challenges of Sustainable Tourism: Promoting Cultural Heritage and Environmental Protection is the topic of the first European Interparliamentary Conference on Tourism which started in the Croatian Parliament on Wednesday. The Conference is being held in Zagreb and Mali Lošinj from September 10 to September 13 and is organized following the initiative of the Tourism Committee of the Croatian Parliament.

Zagreb - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko, who is on an official visit to South Korea, on Monday met with his Korean counterpart Chung Ui-hwa for talks on strengthening bilateral relations, notably on the economic front, with the South Korean official saying that the opening of a Croatian embassy in Seoul would be conducive to that goal.

Zagreb/Beijing - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko met in Beijing on Saturday with the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People's Congress, Zhang Dejiang, who invited Croatia to utilise China's increasingly intense cooperation with Central and East European countries.

Zagreb - High-level state delegations laid wreaths at Zagreb's Mirogoj Cemetery on Monday, marking Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day, Croatian Defenders' Day and the 19th anniversary of Operation Storm. The Croatian Parliament delegation was led by MP Gordana Sobol.

Zagreb - Croatia commemorates the Day of Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving and the Day of Croatian Defenders on August 5, the day when 19 years ago its military and police forces regained control of most of the occupied territory in a military offensive dubbed Operation Storm.

Zagreb - The parliamentary European Affairs Committee has endorsed Neven Mimica as Croatia's candidate for the European Commission in the 2014-19 period. Addressing the committee, Mimica spoke of the EC's achievements in consumer protection, for which he was in charge, the need to strengthen the European Union's democratic legitimacy through cooperation with the national parliaments, and the political guidelines of new EC President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Zagreb - Speaker Josip Leko said on Wednesday that parliament had fulfilled its constitutional task with its work in the first half of the year but that he was not fully satisfied with it, notably with the fact that the bulk of the laws was adopted in fast-track procedure.

Zagreb - Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko and Deputy Speaker Dragica Zgrebec on Wednesday attended a meeting of a United States business delegation and representatives of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) and the Croatian Employers Association which discussed possibilities of developing economic cooperation.

Zagreb - The Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, Josip Leko, welcomed participants in the 15th Transatlantic Forum of the State Legislative Leaders Foundation entitled "Croatia: From Independence to the 28th Member of the European Union and NATO - A Guarantee for a Peaceful Future", which was being held in the Croatian Parliament building on Wednesday.

Zagreb - Italy as the EU President wants to be a catalyst of political changes which should ensure sustainable growth in the European Union and restore citizens' trust damaged by the economic crisis, Italian Ambassador to Croatia Emanuela D'Alessandro said in Zagreb on Monday.

Zagreb - Members of Parliament on Monday warned about the need for a more active role of society in better protecting children's rights, agreeing that as the most vulnerable group, children were affected by poverty the most.

Zagreb - Parliament Speaker Josip Leko told Croatian members of the European Parliament (EP) on Monday that their task, as well as that of the Croatian parliament, was to bring the EP closer to Croatian citizens, acquainting them about its importance for Croatia and them.

Zagreb - Speaker Josip Leko said on Thursday the Croatian Parliament had a good framework, good experience, the political will and good intentions when it came to the parliamentary monitoring of the national security system.