ZAGREB, 9 March 2022 - Croatia's banking system is stable, highly-capitalized and liquid, and the country's integration in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) and efforts to adopt the euro have additional boosted those features, the Croatian Banking Association (HUB) said on Wednesday.

The association underscores that the capital adequacy ratio of all the Croatian banks reached 25.6% at the end of 2021, "making the Croatian banking system one of the best capitalised banking systems in the world and one of the most developed in southeast Europe, which is why the system is fully prepared for the coming challenging period."

Credit institutions in Croatia operated at a profit of HRK 5.6 billion (€750 million) in 2021, which is an increase of 108.8% on the previous year, the Croatian National Bank (HNB) said recently. At the end of last year, 20 banks operated in Croatia, employing 18,200 people.

The HUB's press release reads that the profit of the banks was generated by an increase in trading revenues and due to small-scale depreciation of financial assets, as a direct consequence of the stronger-than-expected recovery from the pandemic recession in 2020.

"Financial stability is a key prerequisite for the sustainable economic growth, and it is extremely important in the crises that we have been faced with  recently," HUB say, pointing otu the example the rapid reaction in the case of resolution of Sberbank Croatia.

HUB also notes that the banking system is making intensive preparations for the changeover from the kuna to the euro.

For more, check out our business section.

ZAGREB, 9 March 2022 - Croatia has registered 2,588 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 26 people have died as a consequence, while there are 9,716 active cases in the country, the national COVID response team reported on Wednesday.

Of that number, 853 patients are in hospital treatment, 59 are on respirators and 5,363 people are self-isolating.

Under the vaccine roll out scheme, 65.57% of the adult population has been fully vaccinated.

For more news about Croatia, click here.

ZAGREB, 9 March 2022 - Before the start of a formal debate in the parliament on the government's proposal for the introduction of the euro as the official currency in Croatia, two parliamentary groups expressed their opposition to the proposal.

"Croatia is not ready to enter the euro area. Do not wander into the fog", Marijan Pavliečk of the Croatian Sovereignists  (HS) told Finance Minister Zdravko Marić.

"Conduct structural reforms. Bring some order to public finances and then when we stand on our own feet, let the people decide in a referendum", Pavliček added.

Miroslav Škoro (ZPH) claimed that the Croatian economy is not ready to enter the euro area.

On the other hand, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) Krešo Beljak undoubtedly supports the changeover to the euro.

"That is the last stop on the Euro-Atlantic integration journey and that is something we wanted back in 1990 already and something we will all benefit from regardless", he said.

Beljak added that he hopes that in the meantime the euro exchange rate won't go crazy when the kuna is exchanged for the euro.

Dario Zurovec (Fokus) too appealed to his colleagues to consider the benefits of the euro. "These are times of an unstable market when the price of raw materials and energy are jumping. We need a stable currency and the euro is the second-most stable currency in the world", he underscored and recalled that the Croatians are saving in euro and that the price of real estate and cars are shown in euro.

"This is a natural course," said Zurovec ahead of a first reading of the bill on introducing the euro as legal tender in Croatia.

For more information on Croatia's adoption of the euro, check out our dedicated business and politics sections.

ZAGREB, 9 March 2022 - The Croatia's industrial inventories at the end of January 2022 rose by 2.9% from the previous month and fell by 6.4% compared with January 2021, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS) shows.

Broken down by main industrial groupings, inventories of capital goods increased the most month on month, by 12.4%. Stocks of of intermediate goods grew by 7.7%, and of non-durable consumer goods by 1.2%, while inventories of durable consumer goods by 0.7%.

On the other hand, inventories of energy dropped by 19.4% month on month.

Year-on-year, inventories of capital goods were cut by 40.6%, and of energy by 9.2%.

Inventories of durable consumer goods fell by 5.2% and of intermediate goods by 4.3%, the inventories of non-durable consumer goods dropped by 3.8%.

For more, check out our business section.

ZAGREB, 9 March 2022 - The European Union (EU) Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Várhelyi  on Tuesday informed the European Parliament (EP) on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and called for agreement on Bosnia's election law, while Croatian MEPs urged the amendment of that legislation soon.

The developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of the topics on the agenda of the EP on Tuesday in Strasbourg, and during the discussion members of the EP agreed that the war in Ukraine had also made the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina more complicated.

Last week, the EU increased its military presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 600 to 1,100 personnel by sending reserves from Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia to prevent potential instability there following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Last Saturday, France announced training flights over Bosnia and Herzegovina in light of the deteriorated international security situation.

"Thirty years after the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the war is back on European soil. Once again, we are witnessing extreme human suffering, with many lives lost and millions fleeing Ukraine," said the Commissioner.

"The last weeks and the changing geopolitical constellations have brought the need for peace back on the top of our agenda. This also means that the stability and security of the Western Balkans have never been so important as they are today!"

"A lot of hope and efforts have been put in the ongoing talks on the electoral and constitutional reform, but a solution is not yet there. It should be found urgently and without any further delay," he added.

"Fair, free and inclusive elections must take place in October, as scheduled," Várhelyi underscored.

He called on Bosnian Serb representatives to take steps "to deescalate tensions, to avoid further rhetoric and to ensure the swift return to State institutions and ensure their full functioning."

Croatian MEP Tonino Picula of the S&D group said that outvoting one of the three peoples "is direct abuse of the system".

MEP Željana Zovko (EPP) recalled the City of Mostar as example after its citizens have not been able to elect their representatives for 12 years.

"Let us make Bosnia and Herzegovina and its election law successful and give people a chance to exercise their voting rights", she said.

MEP Tomislav Sokol (EPP) said that the urgent amendment of the election law was a precondition for the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He elaborated that the matter of the protection of the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina concerns the preservation of fundamental European values including the rule of law, and it also represented a key to stability of that part of Europe.

German Green MEP Romeo Franz said that Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression against Ukraine is an attack on Europe and the European values.

"Putin wants to push Bosnia and Herzegovina back to the past and his biggest ally is (Bosnia Serb leader) Milorad Dodik", Franz said during the debate.

For more information on this, check out our dedicated politics section.

ZAGREB, 9 March 2022 - Ivan Paladina, who has been nominated as the candidate for the new construction minister, said on Wednesday that he could not turn down the proposal made by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković for his nomination as it is a call to rebuild the earthquake-affected homes of Croatian citizens.

"We have little time and a lot of work to do. I accepted this proposal as it also concerns the call to reconstruct the homes of our compatriots," Paldina said while presenting his agenda at a joint meeting of the parliamentary committees on construction and the economy today.

He said that he is always guided by principles of cooperation, inclusion of different opinions and that he always listens to the opinions of professionals and wants to make things simpler.

"Administrative obstacles must not slow down the reconstruction of anyone's home and they must not hinder progress. People, who suffered damage in the (2020) earthquakes, must not fall victim to rules", he said.

He will also focus on making legislative changes so as to accelerate the processes of post-quake reconstruction.

Concerning the criticism from the Opposition that he was an executive of the company that ran the Kupari Luxury Hotels project, Paladina underscored that he had withdrawn from that project four years ago and that he launched procedures to exit from ownership, in this case, two years ago.

"All the investments I was included in were conducted in line with the law and market principles, and I paid my taxes accordingly", he said.

In response to the questions from opposition MPs, Paladina said that to date he has completed many successful investment projects in construction and real estate and that his experience could be useful for the post-quake reconstruction.

The ministerial nominee said that he had already consulted experts and has detected the main problems in the process of the post-quake reconstruction.

For more information on this, check out our dedicated politics section.

ZAGREB, 9 March 2022 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on Wednesday presented the nominated minister of construction, Ivan Paladina, in the parliament, and said that the candidate's experience and enthusiasm are supposed to be a useful contribution to his cabinet.

"The government needs a man with the experience in the construction sector, project management, and real estate and with managerial and entrepreneurial skills so as to make the processes more dynamic," Plenković said at the joint meeting of the parliamentary committees on construction and the economy.

Paladina, born in 1983, graduated from a faculty of economics and has also a postgraduate degree in management. He used to be an advisor to the management of Hrvatska Poštanska Bank (HPB) and before that he had been the chair of the management board of the IGH Institut construction company.

The PM said today that the ministerial department of construction and zoning had three important tasks: to accelerate the post-quake reconstruction, to make the issuance of building permits and other documents faster and simpler in order to boost the investment cycle, as well as to make use of the state property.

For more information on this, check out our dedicated politics section.

March 9, 2022 - In a huge gesture of solidarity with Ukrainian veterinary students, the Zagreb Faculty of Veterinary Medicine has arranged for Ukrainian students to complete their clinical practices and studies in Croatia free of charge.

Tomorrow will be two weeks since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The result is a nearly 14-day war that has claimed the lives of 3,393 Ukrainian civilians and injured 9,000 others. Additionally, it is reported that as of yesterday, more than two million Ukrainians have fled their country because of the war. Some, especially in the first days of the Russian invasion, crossed the borders by car, but the vast majority are women, children, and the elderly on foot. It is estimated that 1,204,000 Ukrainian civilians have arrived in Poland, 191,000 in Hungary, 141,000 in Slovakia, 83,000 in Moldova, 82,000 in Romania, 453 in Belarus, 99,000 in Russia, and 210,000 in other European countries. And the numbers of Ukrainian refugees, as well as dead and wounded, continue to rise as the Russian army advances.

With reduced or ruled out chances of intervention by other countries in the conflict, for fear of a world war, the rest of the world has chosen to isolate Russia with a large number of political and economic sanctions, which range from severe financial blockade, cutting off diplomatic ties, cancellation of cultural events in the country, and even the suspension of their sports teams or athletes in international or continental competitions.

But in addition to the sanctions against Russia, in these two weeks, a large number of efforts and gestures of solidarity to assist Ukrainian refugees were registered throughout the continent. Countless civilians have appeared at the borders to welcome Ukrainian refugees with food, clothing, and transportation. Some have even entered Ukraine to pick up those who are still walking, making it easier for them to reach the border.

In Croatia, centers have been set up that serve as temporary accommodation for refugees in cities such as Zagreb, Varaždin, Osijek, or Vukovar. Likewise, throughout the country, a large number of citizens have organized themselves to receive donations and coordinate their transportation to the border. Also noteworthy are the marches in support and solidarity towards Ukraine, which also call for peace and the end of the Russian invasion. Most notably, the one that took place on Saturday at Ban Jelačić square in Zagreb.

But one gesture, in particular, deserves recognition, not only for the gesture itself but because it opens the door to other ways of assisting the victims and those affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And it is that, among the millions of Ukrainians who have had to leave their homes and their country, many are university students who have been forced to stop their studies. Thus, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Zagreb has provided that Ukrainian veterinary students can complete their studies, validate their courses, and complete their clinical practices in the Croatian capital, free of charge and covering food expenses, and more.

Yesterday, in a public statement shared on its official website, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine announced:

''The Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Zagreb expresses its sincere support to the Ukrainian people in light of the aggression against the sovereign Republic of Ukraine. With great concern, we are following the news about the events of the war in our friendly country Ukraine and express our deep sorrow for the suffering of the Ukrainian people. We feel sincere sympathy for all Ukrainian students, fellow teachers, and the entire Ukrainian nation, and we wish for an end to all aggression on the territory of the Republic of Ukraine.

We would like to help the suffering Ukrainian people and offer Ukrainian veterinary students the possibility of continuing their studies at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Zagreb.

This includes:

1. Continuation of their education free of charge from the first to the sixth year, in Croatian or English.
2. The possibility of completing parts of their course at our Faculty, as part of the student exchange program.
3. Completion of clinical practice at our Faculty’s clinics including professional fieldwork.
4. Free meals in the form of lunch and evening meals in the student restaurants.
5. Provision of continuous support to the development of their careers, with academic and psychological counseling (Office for Career Development and Academic and Psychological Counselling +385 1 2390 330; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
6. An individual approach to resolving problems and classes missed as a result of the current situation.

Ukrainian veterinary students who would like to continue their studies at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Zagreb should send an e-mail (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) for further details.

For more on the Ukraine crisis and Croatia, as well as breaking news, follow our news section.