Finance Minister Zdravko Maric Steps Down, Marko Primorac New Candidate

July the 6th, 2022 – Finance Minister Zdravko Maric has stepped down from his longtime purpose at his have ask for, it has emerged. Marko Primorac will step in as the country’s new Minister of Finance.

As Index writes, Finance Minister Zdravko Maric is leaving his place in just Plenkovic’s govt at his possess ask for. He has by now educated Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic about every little thing, and more details really should be printed later on currently soon after the conference of the cupboard of the government.

“It truly is real that Zdravko Maric is stepping down from his position of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance on his have initiative. The Key Minister will advise the users of the cabinet tomorrow about Maric’s departure. We’re grateful to him for the contribution he has manufactured in the government above the earlier 6 decades. The governing administration will go on to operate as it did right before to resolve all the challenges we’re struggling with in the disaster, guarding individuals, and the financial system. The Prime Minister will present Marko Primorac to the parliamentary the greater part as a candidate for the new Minister of Finance, and to the customers of the Croatian Parliament throughout the following 7 days,” the government informed Index.

Maric’s biography

Finance Minister Zdravko Maric joined the government from his previous situation in the former Agrokor, he survived several circumstances and affairs and is the writer and implementer of quite a few rounds of tax reform.

Maric was born on February the 3rd, 1977 in Slavonski Brod and graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb in 2000, majoring in finance. In 2004 he obtained his master’s diploma at the very same faculty with the matter of his master’s thesis entitled “An evaluation of capital inflows to changeover nations around the world by the effects on investments”.

In 2007, he finished the Govt Education and learning Programme “Community Financial Administration”, at Harvard College, the J.F. Kennedy School of Governing administration. He received his doctorate in 2008 at the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb on the subject “The affect of foreign immediate investment decision on the productiveness of Croatian companies”.

He worked as an assistant at the Institute of Economics in Zagreb, as an exterior affiliate – lecturer at the Zagreb College of Economics and Administration, and as an external associate – lecturer at the Intercontinental Graduate Enterprise School in Zagreb.

From Agrokor to the Croatian Federal government

In 2006, he started out operating in the Ministry of Finance as Assistant Minister for Macroeconomic Evaluation and Organizing, and in 2008 he became Point out Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

From 2012 to 2016, he worked at Agrokor as an government director for tactic and cash marketplaces. From that situation, he came to the place of non-partisan finance minister in the authorities of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

Soon after the fall of Agrokor and its longtime operator Ivica Todoric, the opposition demanded his departure in 2017 and initiated a no-self esteem motion. The 3 ministers from MOST, who had been element of the governing administration at the time, were in favour of his departure, which is why they themselves have been dismissed. The vote of no confidence did not go in Parliament possibly.

A summer holiday at the Bellevue Lodge with problem marks hovering earlier mentioned it…

Finance Minister Zdravko Maric is allegedly stepping down from his placement right after a recent story broke about his remain “more than an prolonged weekend” at the Bellevue Hotel in Mali Losinj.

Again in June 2019, Maric stayed with his loved ones in the luxurious Bellevue Lodge in Mali Losinj. For accommodation for two grown ups and two kids, the Ostro portal uncovered, he paid 291.20 euros (2153 kuna) per evening, which is 3 occasions decrease than the usual selling price for that interval of the year. In other words and phrases, Minister Maric gained a substantial price cut that not all hotel friends can rely on.

“I didn’t influence that conclusion, nor did I inquire for any special discounts. Privately, and very long in advance of I was a minister, it hardly ever as soon as occurred to me,” Maric explained of the celebration.

He was aboard the 800,000 euro yacht owned by entrepreneur Blaz Pavicic

Back again in August 2021, Maric arrived under the scrutiny of the Commission for deciding on conflicts of interest immediately after it was disclosed that he experienced used four to 5 days on the 800,000-euro yacht owned by entrepreneur Blaz Pavicic. At first, Maric refused to give the name of the operator of the yacht, and then, right after revealing the name, he mentioned that this entrepreneur experienced practically nothing to do with his department in conditions of tax debt or HBOR financial loans, and that the concessions owned by Pavicic’s businesses ended up inside the office of the Ministry of Transportation.

It was explained that Finance Minister Zdravko Maric intentionally forgot that his Ministry, additional precisely the Customs Administration, is really essential for the business of Pavicic’s corporations.

Maric is also accused that, collectively with the govt, he knowingly misled the Fee for choosing on conflicts of curiosity a few several years earlier, when in relationship with the Lex Agrokor circumstance, i.e. the Borg affair, he explained that he satisfied with Ivica Todoric only two times, and on February the 26th and March the 3rd, 2017, while he failed to point out other conferences.

Maric would have remained harmless experienced it not been for Martina Dalic’s testimony…

Finance Minister Zdravko then explained to the Commission that at those people two meetings with Todoric, he failed to current or express any positions, viewpoints or proposals. He also stated that no conclusions or conclusions ended up produced at those conferences, and also that his purpose was a passive 1.

This was his vital evidence that he was not in a conflict of desire in connection with the Todoric scenario, that is, Lex Agrokor. The commission acquitted him in that circumstance.

Maric’s claim would have remained the exact same if the assertion to the USKOK of former vice-president Martina Dalic hadn’t appear to mild, who admitted to the investigators that Maric was present at at minimum five meetings back again in the course of February 2017, which concerned not only the creation of Lex Agrokor but also conferences with the leadership of Agrokor. The crucial conference is from February the 19th, when Key Minister Andrej Plenkovic purchased Dalic and Maric to go to a assembly with Todoric.

At that assembly, Todoric requested for the assistance of HBOR, and Maric was offered a presentation of the existing economic scenario inside of the then enfeebled Agrokor. After this information and facts came to mild, and it was opposite to what Maric claimed the initially time in advance of the Fee, the Minister of Finance then defended himself, indicating that he had not lied.

“I read and see a ton of constructions that I explained to some lies and untruths. This is all quickly verifiable,” mentioned Maric, inviting journalists to verify what he was requested ahead of the Fee and what he answered.

But the Commission, which acquitted him in the initially trial, resolved back in August 2018 to renew the proceedings against each Maric and Dalic. At the stop of 2018, they produced a conclusion that Finance Minister Zdravko Maric and former Deputy Key Minister Martina Dalic had “violated the theory of public office in the case of Agrokor”. Both Maric and Dalic appealed versus that decision.

Marko Primorac is the new Finance Minister prospect

The Croatian Government has verified the facts that Marko Primorac is the new applicant for the placement of Finance Minister.

“The Key Minister will present Marko Primorc as a candidate for the new Minister of Finance to the parliamentary vast majority, and to the users of the Croatian Parliament for the duration of the future week,” Index was told.

“Marko Primorac (1984) is a professor at the College of Economics in Zagreb, whose place of ​​expertise is money administration in the community sector, tax coverage and fiscal decentralisation,” additional the Federal government. Marko Primorac was also an financial adviser to Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic again when she was president.

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