President Ivo Josipovic held a press conference in Zagreb on Friday to present members of his team who would be assisting him during his term over the next five years.

Josipovic said he had full confidence in his staff, adding that in putting together his team he made sure there was no increase in costs.

Josipovic will be assisted by Josko Klisovic as chief of staff, Danica Juricic-Spasovic as head of the office, Zlatko Gareljic as defence adviser, Josko Paro as foreign policy adviser, Sasa Perkovic as national security adviser, Sinisa Tatalovic as home policy adviser, Boris Cota as economic adviser, and Zrinka Vrabec-Mojzes as adviser on social activities. Predrag Fred Matic will volunteer as a special adviser on war veterans.

Josipovic said that his Economic Council, consisting of leading economic experts, would not be a rival to the government's economic team but a partner offering advice in the present economic crisis.

The president will also have a Veterans' Council, which will include several veterans of the Second World War and the 1991-1995 Croatian Homeland War, and an Analysis Department, which will be headed by Drago Pilsel.

In addition to Josko Paro, who currently serves as ambassador to the Netherlands, the foreign affairs portfolio will be handled by Romana Vlahutin as adviser on regional affairs and Mirjana Mladineo as adviser on European Union and multilateral affairs.

In the defence sector, former deputy defence minister Zlatko Gareljic will be assisted by Visnja Tafra, who had served as defence adviser to the previous president Stjepan Mesic, while Kresimir Kaspar will continue as head of the military office.

Reporters were curious to know how come Vrabec-Mojzes was on the team considering the fact that she was a co-owner of Radio 101 which owes millions in debt.

Josipovic said that Vrabec-Mojzes owned 1.3 per cent of shares of the Zagreb radio station, stressing that she was not a member of the managing board when the debt was incurred.

Speaking of national security adviser Sasa Perkovic, the president said that Perkovic had done a very good job protecting all presidential candidates against "onslaughts from the intelligence underworld" during the presidential campaign.

The president was also asked why he had taken on Drago Pilsel, since he had reportedly attempted to set a cinema on fire and had thrown stones at a synagogue.

Pilsel denied that he attempted to burn a cinema, saying that as an 18-year-old he burned an insect repellent during the screening of a Yugoslav film in a cinema in Argentina. He added that he was 16 when he and several of his friends, under the influence of alcohol, threw stones at a synagogue's windows.

"In both cases I think I was stupid and I regret it. I think I have proved in my life that I have changed, and what I did was wrong," Pilsel told reporters.