THREESOME IN INA WHISPERS Former Government Vice-president Polancec (middle) ran the negotiations independently, and not together with other members of the commission that included Finance Minister Ivan Suker; one commission member claims that Polancec could not have made any decisions without former Premier Sanader knowing Last week, the State Attorney's Office came to new information in the investigation on alleged illegalities in the privatisation of Croatia's oil company, INA. What they revealed is that a five-member commission was established in February 2008 to lead the negotiations over the new stock agreement with the Hungarian oil company, MOL.

The commission was made up of Government Vice-president Damir Polancec, Finance Minister Ivan Suker, today's head of the Croatian Privatisation Fund Vedran Duvnjak, State Secretary for e-Croatia Igor Lucic and State Secretary in the Justice Ministry Drazen Bosnjakovic. Though the commission was never formally terminated, it stopped working only months after it was formed, under some very mysterious circumstances.

The commission members stopped meeting and stopped receiving information about the course of the negotiations, while Polancec made all decisions independently, even though he had no formal grounds to do so. In fact, Polancec led the entire negotiation process with the Hungarians completely on his own, without any control or supervision by official state bodies. The USKOK investigators now want to find out how and why this happened. They believe that the mysterious end of the work of the official Government commission is an important detail in bringing all the suspicious circumstances in the privatisation affair to light, and the key confirmation to suspicions that the talks with MOL were held in a non-transparent way and that it was not the Croatian Government making the decisions, but Polancec personally. In that context, Polancec could soon be expected to undergo questioning, to explain to investigators on whose orders he led the negotiations independently and not jointly as part of the commission, as he was obliged to do, based on the Government decision. There are indications that other commission members have already been questioned on the matter.

The Government set up the commission at its session on 14 February 2008. At the time, Premier Sanader stated the commission would be aiming to improve certain clauses from the previous agreement, despite the reduction in the state-held stake. But this did not happen, and the commission stopped meeting after only a few sessions. This was confirmed for Nacional by one of the commission members who asked to remain anonymous.

"After three or four meetings, I stopped receiving invitations to commission sessions and information about the course of the negotiations. At that time, the commission was not yet working on developing the negotiation framework, we were still analysing the previous agreement made during the time of the coalition government. Put in football terms, we were thrown off the field during warm-up, even though I never received any formal decision on my termination as a member of the commission, or of the termination of the commission. I don't know what happened later on in the negotiations, but obviously Polancec took it all upon himself. Though I never asked about it, I don't believe that this could have happened without the knowledge and permission of the premier," he commented.

Despite these claims, it is possible to expect that the members of the commission have already explained to USKOK why they accepted the end of work of the commission without contesting it, or even formally asking about the reasons. Those well informed believe that it was former Premier Sanader who played the key role, using his authority to ensure that his moves were not publically questioned. However, this cannot be justification for the Government officials who were members of the commission, especially since they supported the deal reached by Polancec in a vote several months later. Nacional has attempted to question the other members of the commission, and Polancec himself, but failed to do so, while MOL's public relations service informed us they cannot comment on Government decisions.

Even those these revelations on the events surrounding the commission confirm claims by Premier Jadranka Kosor, who has stated on several occasions that the remaining government members did not have information about the negotiations led by Polancec, this could prove to be very awkward for those government members, as they will have to explain to the public why they did not react when excluded from the talks. This is quite possibly the reason why the issue of the work of the commission was not addressed earlier, even though its establishment was public information. The testimony of Nacional's source, and other commission members, are new confirmation of information Nacional received from a reliable Hungarian source last week, that the MOL officials negotiated exclusively with Polancec on the INA privatisation, and throughout the negotiations they had a direct connection to Premier Sanader.

However, though it is not almost definite that all decisions in the talks with MOL were made by Polancec alone, or in cohort with Sanader, investigators are trying to establish whether others on the Croatian side participating in the talks. They are, in particularly, looking into the role of attorney Zoran Markovic, whom the domestic media have pinned as the person connecting the Government, MOL and Podravka. If they can establish such a link, it can be expected that Markovic will be subject to a comprehensive criminal investigation. Regardless of his role, it can be expected that former Government Vice-president Damir Polancec will soon be in the hot seat, as it is becoming more and more certain that he is the one responsible for the damaging agreement reached with MOL. Depending on his testimony, we could also see former Premier Ivo Sanader under official questioning.