We are making public the Defence Minister’s Decision whereby, contrary to the Constitution, he planned to appoint a provisional head of the VSOA

The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović warned yesterday that the Government of Andrej Plenković, contrary to the Croatian Constitution, intends to place the Military Security and Intelligence Agency (VSOA) under the direct management of the Ministry of Defence, i.e. the Defence Minister, who would be given the authority to appoint a provisional head of the Agency.

Since Prime Minister Andrej claimed today that none of this is true, the Office of the President of the Republic is making public the Decision prepared by Defence Minister Mario Banožić on 5 July 2023 in order to confirm and substantiate yesterday’s statements by President Milanović.

The prepared Decision by the Defence Minister was officially handed over to a representative of the Office of the President of the Republic at Wednesday’s meeting of the Council for the Coordination of Security and Intelligence Agencies, and was presented as a solution pending the appointment of the VSOA director.

According to the proposed Decision, the Defence Minister should have appointed a provisional head of the VSOA and already designated – and wrote the name in the Decision – of the military officer he planned to appoint “for the coordination of the work and signing of documents from the domain of the Military Security and Intelligence Agency”. The Defence Minister’s Decision should have come into force on 12 July 2023, and the appointed individual should have carried out the coordination of the work and signing of documents from the domain of the VSOA pending the appointment of the VSOA director.

After the Prime Minister refused an agreement and a discussion with the President of the Republic on the appointment of a new director, issuing such a Decision in the long run would leave the VSOA without a director, and the coordination of the work and the signing of documents from the domain of that Agency would be left to an individual designated by the Defence Minister. In this way the VSOA would remain exclusively under the control of the Defence Minister and the Government, and the President of the Republic would be prevented from coordinating and directing the work of the VSOA, which is his constitutional duty.

Because of all that, President Milanović made a public call yesterday, and called on the Government not to issue such Decisions whereby the Constitution, the constitutional procedure of appointing the VSOA director, and the usual democratic practice are violated.