July the sixth, 2022 – Finance Minister Zdravko Maric has stepped down from his longtime position at his personal request, it has emerged. Marko Primorac will step in as the rustic’s new Minister of Finance.
US Index writes, Finance Minister Zdravko Maric is leaving his place inside of Plenkovic’s govt at his personal request. He has already knowledgeable Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic about the entirety, and additional data must be revealed afterward lately after the assembly of the cupboard of the federal government.
“It’s true that Zdravko Maric is stepping down from his place of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance on his personal initiative. The Prime Minister will tell the participants of the cupboard the next day about Maric’s departure. We’re thankful to him for the contribution he has made within the govt over the last six years. The govt will proceed to paintings because it did prior to to unravel the entire demanding situations we are going through within the disaster, protective other people, and the economic system. The Prime Minister will provide Marko Primorac to the parliamentary majority as a candidate for the brand new Minister of Finance, and to the participants of the Croatian Parliament all through the following week,” the federal government instructed Index.
Maric’s biography
Finance Minister Zdravko Maric joined the federal government from his former place throughout the former Agrokor, he survived a number of scenarios and affairs and is the writer and implementer of a number of rounds of tax reform.
Maric was once born on February the third, 1977 in Slavonski Brod and graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb in 2000, majoring in finance. In 2004 he won his grasp’s stage on the identical school with the subject of his grasp’s thesis entitled “An research of capital inflows to transition international locations throughout the affect on investments”.
In 2007, he finished the Executive Education Program “Public Financial Management”, at Harvard University, the JF Kennedy School of Government. He won his doctorate in 2008 on the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb at the matter “The affect of international direct funding at the productiveness of Croatian firms”.
He labored as an assistant on the Institute of Economics in Zagreb, as an exterior affiliate – lecturer on the Zagreb School of Economics and Management, and as an exterior affiliate – lecturer on the International Graduate Business School in Zagreb.
From Agrokor to the Croatian Government
In 2006, he set to work within the Ministry of Finance as Assistant Minister for Macroeconomic Analysis and Planning, and in 2008 he was State Secretary within the Ministry of Finance.
From 2012 to 2016, he labored at Agrokor as an government director for technique and capital markets. From that place, he got here to the location of non-partisan finance minister within the govt of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.
After the autumn of Agrokor and its longtime proprietor Ivica Todoric, the opposition demanded his departure in 2017 and initiated a no-confidence movement. The 3 ministers from MOST, who had been a part of the federal government on the time, had been in choose of his departure, which is why they themselves had been brushed aside. The vote of no self assurance didn’t move in Parliament both.
A summer time vacation on the Bellevue Hotel with query marks soaring above it…
Finance Minister Zdravko Maric is it appears stepping down from his place after a contemporary tale broke about his keep “over a longer weekend” on the Bellevue Hotel in Mali Losinj.
Back in June 2019, Maric stayed along with his circle of relatives within the sumptuous Bellevue Hotel in Mali Losinj. For lodging for 2 adults and two kids, the Ostro portal published, he paid 291.20 euros (2153 kuna) in step with evening, which is 3 times not up to the standard value for that length of the yr. In different phrases, Minister Maric won an enormous bargain that now not all resort visitors can rely on.
“I did not affect that call, nor did I ask for any reductions. Privately, and lengthy prior to I used to be a minister, it by no means as soon as took place to me,” Maric mentioned of the development.
He was once aboard the 800,000 euro yacht owned by way of entrepreneur Blaz Pavicic
Back in August 2021, Maric got here below the scrutiny of the Commission for settling on conflicts of pastime after it was once published that he had spent 4 to 5 days at the 800,000-euro yacht owned by way of entrepreneur Blaz Pavicic. At first, Maric refused to offer the title of the landlord of the yacht, after which, after revealing the title, he mentioned that this entrepreneur had not anything to do along with his division on the subject of tax debt or HBOR loans, and that the concessions owned by way of Pavicic’s firms had been throughout the division of the Ministry of Transport.
It was once mentioned that Finance Minister Zdravko Maric intentionally forgot that his Ministry, extra exactly the Customs Administration, is terribly essential for the industry of Pavicic’s firms.
Maric could also be accused that, along side the federal government, he knowingly misled the Commission for settling on conflicts of pastime 3 years previous, when in reference to the Lex Agrokor case, ie the Borg affair, he mentioned that he met with Ivica Todoric most effective two times , and on February the twenty sixth and March the third, 2017, whilst he failed to say different conferences.
Maric would have remained blameless had it now not been for Martina Dalic’s testimony…
Finance Minister Zdravko then instructed the Commission that at the ones two conferences with Todoric, he did not provide or put across any positions, reviews or proposals. He additionally mentioned that no selections or conclusions had been made at the ones conferences, and in addition that his position was once a passive one.
This was once his key proof that he wasn’t in a battle of pastime in reference to the Todoric case, this is, Lex Agrokor. The fee acquitted him if that’s the case.
Maric’s declare would have remained the similar if the commentary to the USKOK of former vice-president Martina Dalic hadn’t come to mild, who admitted to the investigators that Maric was once provide a minimum of 5 conferences again all through February 2017, which involved now not most effective the introduction of Lex Agrokor but in addition conferences with the management of Agrokor. The the most important assembly is from February the nineteenth, when Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic ordered Dalic and Maric to visit a gathering with Todoric.
At that assembly, Todoric requested for the assistance of HBOR, and Maric was once given a presentation of the present monetary scenario throughout the then enfeebled Agrokor. After this knowledge got here to mild, and it was once Contrary to what Maric mentioned the primary time prior to the Commission, the Minister of Finance then defended himself, announcing that he had now not lied.
“I learn and spot a large number of structures that I instructed some lies and untruths. This is all simply verifiable,” mentioned Maric, inviting reporters to test what he was once requested prior to the Commission and what he replied.
But the Commission, which acquitted him within the first trial, determined again in August 2018 to resume the complaints towards each Maric and Dalic. At the top of 2018, they decided that Finance Minister Zdravko Maric and previous Deputy Prime Minister Martina Dalic had “violated the main of public place of business on the subject of Agrokor”. Both Maric and Dalic appealed towards that call.
Marko Primorac is the brand new Finance Minister candidate
The Croatian Government has showed the ideas that Marko Primorac is the brand new candidate for the location of Finance Minister.
“The Prime Minister will provide Marko Primorc as a candidate for the brand new Minister of Finance to the parliamentary majority, and to the participants of the Croatian Parliament all through the following week,” Index was once instructed.
“Marko Primorac (1984) is a professor on the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb, whose space of experience is monetary control within the public sector, tax coverage and financial decentralisation,” added the Government. Marko Primorac was once additionally an financial adviser to Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic again when she was once president.
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