Gordan Grlić Radman fined 5,300 euros

(Patria) - The Conflict of Interest Commission decided today that Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman violated the law when he failed to include data on paid dividends from several companies in his asset declaration.

Grlić Radman was therefore fined the legally maximum amount of 5,300 euros (approximately 10,365 BAM).

From taking office in 2019 until 2022, the minister received dividends from several companies, including Agroproteinka, of which he is a co-owner, as well as from InterPlod, Zagrebačka Banka, and OTP Bank, and he did not enter this data into his asset declaration, although he was required to do so.

Because of this, the Commission unanimously decided to fine him 2,600 euros in six installments for 2019 and 2020, and for violations in 2021 and 2022, when the new law on preventing conflicts of interest came into force, a one-time sanction of 2,700 euros, which he must pay into the state budget within 15 days.

For four years, Grlić Radman did not list any capital income in any of his asset declarations, even though in 2019 the Commission gave him an opinion that he could receive dividends and explicitly pointed out that he was obliged to show this in his asset declaration; despite this, he did not do so, said Commission member Ines Pavlačić.

The check established that from 2019 he had receipts from several companies that he did not enter into his asset declaration.

In 2019, he received 1.9 million kuna in dividends from Agroproteinka, 319,000 kuna from InterPlod, and 5,800 kuna from Zagrebačka Banka.

A year later, he received 2.1 million kuna from Agroproteinka, 100,000 kuna from InterPlod, and 3,806 kuna from OTP Bank.

In 2021, he received 2.9 million kuna in dividends from Agroproteinka, 238,000 kuna from InterPlod, and 1,204 kuna from Zagrebačka Banka. Capital income from Agroproteinka in 2022 was 5.3 million kuna.

The Commission obtained this data from the Tax Administration since all these receipts were reported and taxes were paid on them.

Pavlačić emphasizes that citizens have the right at any time to be informed about the behavior of the obligor as a public figure, that these are large amounts, and that by not entering them into the asset declarations, the public was deprived of this information.

- This is a high state office where the highest level of responsibility and transparency is expected - Pavlačić stressed, as reported by Hina.

In his written response, Grlić Radman defended himself with claims that it was an unintentional omission that occurred for the first time, that he reported the receipts to the Tax Administration and paid taxes on them, and that he did everything to correct this, and that it should be taken into account that he did not fail to submit an asset declaration, but only filled it out incorrectly.

- In October of this year, he updated his asset declaration; however, the purpose of the institution of reporting to the public on property status is not to fill out declarations under public pressure, but everyone must do so conscientiously and responsibly - Pavlačić stated.

Commission President Aleksandra Jozić-Ileković noted that checks of asset declarations are generally conducted upon a report or if they themselves notice certain deficiencies. Four advisors work on asset declarations, and they have 3,000 obligors.