Moreover, in the mentioned weekly magazine Tudman was treated as the only one with clear intentions regarding the power plant in Jertovec, while the leading people of the former, as well as the present Government are openly suspected of using this situation for their own interests.
Was it a coincidence that corruption, or more specifically, the absence of "prosecution of corrupted related crimes committed by the members of the former Government", was emphasized as the greatest sin of the present Croatian Government in an unsigned Reuters commentary? To tell the truth, Reuters' journalist is right regarding the corruption as well as the unchanged conditions in the intelligence services and the Croatian TV and probable problems in the relations with The Hague Court. The only thing that is not clear is why this analysis appeared now, rather than several months ago, when all Croatian newspapers wrote about it?! Does this mean that some special dollar counter has been built in in the democratization of Croatia? And that they will keep quiet as long as some western circles think they are paid sufficiently for all the favors done to the coalition of the six ruling parties, and speak only when something is wrong with the counter?
Difficult doubts? Certainly, but even more troubling is the fact that these doubts are not coming from the Croatian right-wing circles and that for the first time they do not have to struggle to come up with accusations of the West. The most troubling thing of all is that these doubts have appeared at the time when the new authorities have to answer truthfully one question. How much do they really care about the western values? Are they ready to accept the principles of the so-called western society and the state that limits itself both in the relations with the rest of the world and in the relations with its own citizens?
It is also clear that some kind of training of Croatia for regional cooperation has been organized in Brussels, including Mesic's contacts with the representatives of Slovenia and Macedonia, as well as his meeting with Havel, Kucan, and Djukanovic in Dubrovnik. A special significance was given to the Slovenian president, because Slovenian willingness for regional cooperation is tightly connected with their internal political situation, just as in Croatia.
Indeed, Slovenia has changed its attitude towards the so-called Chirac's conference several times. First Kucan agreed, then the idea was frozen with the election of Bajuk's government, after which Slovenia became interested once again, probably because of money that is supposed to stimulate the participants in the conference. Mesic has every reason to be angry with the Slovenians, because they almost obstructed all "international" arrangements with their election of Bajuk's right-wing government.
But, what can we say about Croatia? The same left-wing-centrist Government as today was in power this Spring, when Chirac came up with his with his idea, but Croatian reactions were very similar to those form Slovenia. Drazen Budisa has taken the side opposite to Mesic. He sees the conference, which is to be held in Zagreb, as an attempt to re-establish Yugoslavia. Helped by Zdravko Tomac, he asked Racan to immediately stop the evil plan.