Domestic policy is guilty for the sense of citizens that Croatia did not progress since entering the European Union, but eurosceptic and populist growth is the result of bad responses of the European mainstream parties and the EU crisis institutions, said Tonino Picula, head of SDP's list at European elections.
"The Union has to know what it wants and we need to draw populist and euroskeptic lessons because they didn't appear from nowhere", Picula warned, and estimates that the EU is at this moment between "those who would update it and those who would cancel it." The cause of populist and eurosceptic growth, Picula sees in the wrong reaction to the financial crisis 10 years ago, that has in time become a social, economic, security and governance one.
"The system parties have been defeated, they weren't responsible enough and then there have been reports of irresponsible anti-system parties suggesting solutions that are often bizarre, but sound seductive, which twould probably turn the current state into a chaotic one", Picula says.
The negative perception of the EU was strengthened with the refugee crisis that has shown the inability of European institutions to bring together common solutions under the sudden external shock, Croatian MEP continues.
"Sistemske stranke su podbacile, nisu bile dovoljno odgovorne a onda su se javile neodgovorne antisistemske stranke koja predlažu rješenja koja su često bizarna, zvuče zavodljivo ali bi vjerojatno jedno stanje, kojim su mnogi nezadovoljni, uvela u područje kaosa", smatra Picula.
Read the whole interview on the link.
