EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF CROATIAN PARLIAMENT TODAY OVER 37,000 TONNES OF HAZARDOUS WASTE

ZAGREB, AUGUST 20 /SRNA/ - The Croatian Parliament will hold an extraordinary session today at the request of Croatian President Zoran Milanović over 37,000 tonnes of hazardous waste in Gospić.

The storage of hazardous waste in Gospić has alarmed the public in recent days and raised questions about the responsibility of the relevant institutions. Milanović called for the extraordinary session after a session of the parliamentary Committee on Environmental Protection, convened specifically to address the issue, failed to take place. A heated debate is expected over how the controversial waste storage was allowed to happen in the first place and who is responsible for endangering the environment and public health, Croatian media reported. Sandra Benčić, an MP from the Možemo party in the Croatian Parliament, claims that the Croatian authorities have been aware of the problem since 2023, when the State Inspectorate began conducting inspections, and that the Gospić case is not an isolated incident. At the centre of the scandal is an industrial complex on Bilajska Street in Gospić, where around 37,000 tonnes of mixed waste were stored, according to an expert report by the Faculty of Geotechnical Engineering commissioned by the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime /USKOK/. The experts found extremely high concentrations of copper, lead and antimony in the soil, as well as elevated concentrations of hazardous PFAS substances in groundwater.