Varaždin Mayor Neven Bosilj sharply criticized the Prime Minister and state institutions over the hazardous waste case in Gospić, warning that a significant amount of waste from the same company is also located in Varaždin. He demanded full transparency, laboratory results, and groundwater analysis.
Due to the hazardous waste case in Gospić, Varaždin Mayor Neven Bosilj (SDP) on Monday placed the primary responsibility on the state's top leadership. He asserted that the entire situation proves the system is not functioning, directly blaming the Government and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. His accusations carry additional weight given that approximately 5,000 tons of waste, originating from the same company, is currently located at the former Mundus site in Varaždin.
Via social media, Bosilj stated that the residents of Gospić and the wider Lika region have become collateral victims of failures within the chain of responsible institutions. He questioned how it is even possible that 37,000 tons of hazardous material passed through the country without any reaction from the police or other responsible bodies. In his criticism, he did not spare the State Inspectorate, the intelligence system, or those issuing waste management permits. He also linked the entire case to the former Chief State Inspector, Andrija Mikulić.
"The most responsible for this situation is none other than Andrej Plenković and his Government, for whom Andrija Mikulić was a prominent and important figure," Bosilj wrote.
The Mayor particularly emphasized that the case from Lika has direct implications for Varaždin as well. The aforementioned 5,000 tons of waste of the same origin is deposited at the former Mundus site. Given everything that has come to light regarding Gospić, Bosilj insists that it be unequivocally and promptly determined what exactly was deposited at the Varaždin location, whether any residue remains in the soil, and whether it poses any threat to public health and the environment.
"We don't need assurances that everything is fine; we need the State Inspectorate's records that they refuse to provide, we need samples, laboratory results, and full transparency of the findings. After remediation, groundwater should also be analyzed," he stated.
In his post, Bosilj also addressed the Prime Minister's recent appearance in Sinj, where Plenković spoke about the remediation of Varaždin's bales. The Mayor claims that the Prime Minister unjustifiably took credit for removing waste that had lain at the city's entrance, in a water-protected area, for two full decades. He pointed out that this problem was actually solved by his city team, six years after Plenković took office as Prime Minister, and after a four-year term of Damir Habijan, the current Minister of Justice, as head of the Varaždin City Council.
"One might say they had time to solve it during their joint four years, but they didn't. They didn't because they didn't know how," he wrote.
According to him, the City of Varaždin carried out the entire job, from devising the solution and issuing an international public tender to the final selection of the contractor. The Government, he claims, only got involved at the very end of the process. The financial burden of the bales' remediation was taken on by the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund. Bosilj also reminded that the Government accepted the City's request for the permanent disposal of the bales to be funded with public money, citing similar examples such as the cleanup of the Sovjak pit in Viškovo and slag in Biljani Donji.
