ZAGREB, 4 Nov 2021 - Opposition MPs said on Wednesday, in a debate about a draft budget revision for 2021, that they would not support it because the expenditure was not transparent and the budget revision did not envisage the reconstruction of areas hit by last year's earthquakes or reforms. 

Sandra Benčić of the Green-Left Bloc said the budget revision was an act of capitulation by the government to the post-earthquake reconstruction of Zagreb and Banovina.

There were no plans for reconstruction, not even public buildings with unproblematic property-rights relations have been reconstructed, she warned.

We do not know if an extension of the deadline to use the money from the EU Solidarity Fund will be requested "or how much of it we will have to return because we will not be able to use it," she said, adding that citizens were not a government priority but the purchase of fighter jets was.

Anka Mrak Taritaš recalled that the budget revision was the second budget revision this year.

It shows that the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare all the problems in the health system and that it is not managed well, she said, adding that there was also no post-earthquake reconstruction or reforms.

The results of the population census will show how serious the demographic situation is and a demographic strategy needs to be adopted urgently, Mrak Taritaš said, adding that a possible solution was to hire foreign nationals.

Domagoj Hajduković of the Social Democrats, too, said he would not support the budget revision, noting that budget funds had been spent in a non-transparent way.

Siniša Hajdaš Dončić of the Social Democratic Party said he would vote against the budget revision because of poor expenditure management.

For more on politics, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 4 Nov 2021 - There have been 6,310 new coronavirus infections in Croatia in the past 24 hours, which is the highest daily number of new cases in a single day since the start of the pandemic, Croatian Television said on Thursday, citing unofficial reports.

On Wednesday Croatia logged 4,573 new infections and 41 related fatalities.

The number of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients has been increasing as well. On Thursday 1,643 patients needed hospital care, including 198 who were on ventilators.

Official data on the number of infections and deaths are expected to be released later in the day.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.

November 4, 2021 - The Zlatko Kranjčar memorial plaque was unveiled on Wednesday at the Dinamo juniors field, honoring the legendary Croatian footballer and coach who passed away earlier this year. 

Dinamo fans voted to honor 'Cico', who passed away in March, among five club legends. Fans could also vote for Dražan Jerković, Krasnodar Rora, Zlatko Škorić and Slaven Zambata, reports HRT.

With over 2300 votes and 36.03 percent of the total vote, the unforgettable 'Cico' Kranjčar was chosen, whose name adorns the famous junior field. 

 The ceremony was attended by Dinamo President Mirko Barišić, Dinamo CEO Vlatka Peras, Rapid's first man Christoph Peschek, Rapid's sports director Zoran Barišić, head coach of Dinamo's first team Damir Krznar and the son of club legend and former Dinamo player Niko Kranjčar.

"I’m sure the fans were guided by heart and emotion. Therefore, I have a great need to pay tribute to all the legends who were in this selection, but also to all those who created the foundations of Dinamo with their football and human virtues," said the former Dinamo player and son of the club legend, Niko Kranjčar.

"Thank you to your parents, grandparents who, through their stories and memories of their idols, managed to show us at least a little how much these greats meant. The most important thing is that we continue to teach our children who these people are and how important they are in creating the history of our Dinamo. Without them, Dinamo would not be what it is today, and we should never go into oblivion. I am sure that new generations will write new stories on these fields and that we will proudly pass them on to the next generations," Niko added.

"I am glad that the son of the club legend, Niko Kranjčar, is with us today at this beautiful event. Also, I am glad that the link between our two clubs, Dinamo and Rapid, was Cico Kranjčar. I am convinced that this friendship between the clubs will remain permanent and that we will always be happy to remember Kranjčar, as well as all our greats. I hope that this will be a model for the generations to come," said the president of Dinamo Mirko Barišić.

Croatian football player and football coach Zlatko Cico Kranjčar passed away on March 1, 2021, after a short and severe illness. He was born on November 15, 1956.

Cico Kranjčar began his professional playing career in 1973 at Dinamo Zagreb, where he played until 1983.

He was a top center forward and scorer and scored 98 goals for Dinamo in 261 games. Kranjčar is recognized as one of the best Dinamo Zagreb strikers. He took part in the famous Yugoslav championship in 1982 and two Marshall Tito Cups in 1980 and 1983.

Kranjčar then moved to Vienna club Rapid, where he became a club legend and remained until 1990. He scored 106 goals for Rapid in 201 games. This was followed by shorter adventures at Austrian clubs VS St. Pölten and SV Wienerfeld.

He played for Yugoslavia 11 times and scored 3 goals. He was one of only 15 players who responded to the premiere performance of the Croatia national team against the United States in October 1990. He played for Croatia twice and scored one goal. He was also the captain in the first game against the USA.

Kranjčar began his coaching career in 1991 as the coach of Wienerfeld Vienna in 1991. He led Dinamo on three occasions and was twice the champion of Croatia. As a coach, he will be best remembered for the champion generation of Zagreb in 2002, with whom he sensationally won the HNL.

He led the Croatia national team from 2004 to 2006 and played in the World Cup. Cico's Croatia finished third in the group against Brazil, Australia, and Japan.

He has led numerous clubs in his career - Segesta, LASK, Slaven Belupo, Samobor, Al-Masry, Mura, Marsonia, Rijeka, Croatia Sesvete, Al-Shaab, DAC Dunajska Streda, Persepolis, and Sepahan. Cico was alsi the coach of Iran and Montenegro.

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

November 4, 2021 - Because Chops breakfast serves every kind of Split morning, rain or shine. 

Breakfast - sworn by parents as the most important meal of the day, never missed by athletes, and indeed a meal no tourist traveling Croatia can afford to miss before their sightseeing adventures. 

And while you're exploring Split, you'll notice that some restaurants do breakfast better than the rest. Chops Grill is one of them. 

Making waves last year with their affordable yet quick grab-n-go brekky options, like the irresistible croissant sandwich with prosciutto or salmon and tangy spring onion and honey mustard touch, dining at Chops for your morning meal comes with a generous selection of feel-good food you won't soon forget. 

A staple on the Chops breakfast menu is the hard-hitting eggburger, which first made its debut last year on the new Chops to-go menu with the favorite croissant sandwich. A perfectly chewy bun warmed by fluffy scrambled eggs, cheese, sriracha mayo, and spring onion make for a delightful yet just filling enough morning munch. 

But Chops' breakfast goes beyond these beloved sandwiches. Classics like eggs benedict on in-house English muffins, the ham, cheese, and pancetta omelet, or the over-the-top Chops breakfast with scrambled eggs on focaccia with pancetta, grilled sausage, and asparagus will teleport your morning from Split to the USA. You can even sit down for American pancakes to seal the deal! 

But that's not all. 

Those of you looking to keep things light can opt for the chia pudding, fit breakfast with Greek yogurt, avocado toast, or veggie omelet, or quench your thirst thanks to a variety of freshly squeezed juices, from apple, mint, and ginger, to Super Green, Veggie Focus, or the Heartbeat abounding in avocado, banana, apple, and red beet! 

And juices aren't the only way to whet your morning palate, with standout items like the avocado or almond butter berry shake on offer, too. 

Topped off with award-winning coffee, there is something for everyone at Chops Grill - and you'll likely return for dinner to try their star-studded selection of steaks! 

You can see the full Chops breakfast menu HERE. 

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

November 4, 2021 - The atypical humanitarian Split Beard Auction is part of the global Movember movement. The highly anticipated event celebrates its jubilee 5th edition this year.

The auction urges men to stop shaving in November and determine the price of their beards or the amount for which they are willing to shave them off. Then, if enough donations are collected for that beard, the person shaves at the Beard Auction on the first Sunday in December, and the collected funds are donated to the Split County League Against Cancer. People can also nominate a "beard" or "mustache" via social media to encourage relatives, colleagues, and friends to donate. In both cases, you can support the auction in an informal and fun way to raise awareness about various forms of cancer, with special emphasis on prostate cancer in men - which in 90% of cases is curable if detected in time!

The auction has so far been accompanied by the immense enthusiasm of locals, and at the last 'Covid' edition in 2020, the auction collected 93,000 kuna, of which fixation material was provided for radiotherapy of prostate cancer patients at the Split Clinical Hospital Center.

This year, the goal is to exceed 100,000 kuna, and the funds raised will be spent on educating the general public about the importance of preventive examinations. Thus far, they have shaved the beards of Alkars, many current and former athletes, singers, actors, politicians, and bikers, and everyone is welcome!

DJ Matthew Bee will enhance the atmosphere on Sunday, December 4, at Plan B pub, starting at noon and lasting until the evening when the band Little Sisters will perform.

Participants who cannot come to Split in person can shave at an earlier date and film the spectacle for all to see! Post a picture of your face adorned with a beard or mustache on social media, tag @bradata.aukcija, and invite friends and acquaintances to join the auction. The collected amount should be brought to Plan B on December 4 or paid directly to the Split County League Against Cancer, IBAN: HR4824070001100579328 (payment description - za Bradatu Aukciju + name of donation).

The Beard Auction is organized by the Split County League Against Cancer with partners: Ka'brada, Rotary Club Split Plus, PromoPlan, and Kazinoti & Komenda and barbers Leekarija Barbershop, Barbershop Ivan, Stil A and Španić Barber from Vinkovci.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

November the 4th, 2021 - Having teamed up with Gong and Code for Croatia, the new Popravi to platform (Fix it) offers people a quick, free and easy way to report damage in public areas, whether it be broken lights or something more.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the service portal for reporting utility problems to the competent services "Popravi to", whose task is to eliminate and solve them, has been fully available on the Internet as of Tuesday this week, and it also covers the entire territory of Croatia, Gong announced.

Popravi to is a free tool created in cooperation with Code for Croatia and Gong, and facilitates the reporting of problems and damage to public areas and infrastructure in every single city, municipality, or indeed anywhere in the country.

"The idea is that people no longer have to investigate who to report damage to, whether it be a hole in the pavement, street lights that aren't working, a damaged bench or an improper landfill. All you have to do is mark the location on the map, briefly describe and photograph the problem and mark the category, and Popravi to sends the application to the right address based on this information,'' Gong reported. Every application on the portal will be visible to everyone.

“The fact that all reports are public makes it possible to monitor local authorities and monitor the efficiency of local utility companies, as well as compare the way things stand with other cities. This relieves local self-government units because the authorities stop receiving multiple reports of the same problem,'' they pointed out from Gong.

The portal will show how and when the problem was previously reported and at what stage it is at in terms of being resolved. This is the biggest purpose of the portal - to facilitate communication between people and the authorities and open up space for cooperation in solving community problems, they stressed.

Project manager Miroslav Schlossberg said that they believe that local self-government units will recognise "Popravi to" as a service that facilitates the detection and location of problems and damage, and that it will appreciate the contribution of residents who make problems known to them.

"We expect that they will cooperate in the context of performing their duties and responsibilities - responding to the reported problems and repairing them,'' they concluded from Gong.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

November the 4th, 2021 - The Croatian Government has approved the concession termination of the Vukovar Free Zone, bringing the number of them located on Croatian territory down.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Brnic writes, in terms of the EU, Croatia is at the very top in terms of the number of free zones - until last week it had eleven, with three being in the process of being ''deleted'' for some time now, and according to the new concession, the Vukovar Free Zone will also join that listdecentia .

The request to terminate the concession came from Vukovar itself, more precisely from the company Filir, which, along with the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of the City of Vukovar, is also the founder of the Danube Free Zone (otherwise known as the Vukovat Free Zone). The 25-year free zone concession was approved back in 2003 and would have been valid until February 2028, but its founders and users have concluded that they no longer want to operate under that regime.

As a reason for revoking the concession, they stated "the current economic situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and the need for storage and production facilities in order to expand business."

These reasons and the request for termination of the concession are supported by all six beneficiaries, for whom, as stated in the Government decision, the conditions of business outside the free zone regime will be more acceptable than business in the free zone regime.

One of the explanations is that out of 290 million kuna of revenue in that zone last year, only 2 percent was generated through actual exports. If we compare the data on the operations of all free zones, which was recently the item on the table of the Government, in the last five years in the Vukovar Free Zone there were no major deviations in the amount of revenue, the number of users or the share of exports in terms of revenue.

When it comes to the question of just how further activities will take place after the termination of the concession, so far there's no information from the owner Filir, who is the majority owner of the Vukovar Free Zone with a share of 70 percent.

Doing business in zones of this type brings certain benefits, from tax and customs treatment to lower levies at the local level, benefits in terms of utility fees and taxes from/on salaries. The annual concession fee amounted to 2 percent of revenues generated by users, half of which goes to the state and half to the city budget, but last year the Government additionally abolished the obligation to pay this fee.

Spatially, the Vukovar Free Zone was ''halved'' six years ago, because users requested that the area it covers to be reduced from 21,000 to 7.6 thousand square metres, and of that area, just over 3,000 metres remain operational.

Although the people of Vukovar cite difficult conditions due to the coronavirus pandemic as the reason for the termination of the concession, the Vukovar Free Zone recorded the smallest "earthquake" of all zones in Croatia last year - the revenues of its six users fell by 0.48 percent and the company ended the year with 3.23 percent higher profit, totalling 47.6 million kuna.

Back in 2020, a total of 74 enterprises operated in all Croatian free zones, two more than a year earlier, with 2.6 thousand workers, about 200 less than back in pre-pandemic 2019. Their total revenues amounted to 1.55 billion kuna, which marks an approximate 8 percent lower result than in the year before the pandemic, while profit was more than a third lower, reaching 110 million kuna last year.

For more, check out our dedicated business section.

November the 4th, 2021 - The Vodnjan Infobip company has gone from strength to strength over recent years, and now, with its most recent take over of an American rival, this remarkable Croatian company is edging ever closer to Wall Street.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Ana Blaskovic writes, the first, and so far the only Croatian ''unicorn'', the Vodnjan Infobip, is continuing with its ambitious expansion. After a financial injection of half a billion dollars last month, this company acquired the American Peerless Network, a global provider of VoIP (Voice over IP) services.

Although the value of the transaction remains a secret for now, it is on the trail of plans to go public in New York in late next year, or in early 2023. This latest acquisition comes after the Vodnjan Infobip company realised a 500 million US dollar loan last month with the main investors being credit funds managed by Ares Management Corporation and those managed by BlackRock, under the advisory baton of Morgan Stanley.

''This new financing places Infobip in an exclusive group of renowned high-growth and high-value technology companies, which have used a similar form of financing. This is Infobip's second round of external financing, after a significant strategic investment by the capital investment company One Equity Partners (OEP) in the total amount of 300 million euros from the second half of last year,'' the company said in a statement.

They don't want to talk too much about the details of the transaction, stating only that the payment was made with a combination of money and shares from Infobip, as well as the fact that the management of Peerless will invest parts of its ownership shares in the Vodnjan Infobip company. The conclusion itself depends on the green light of the regulator.

By stepping into the US market, Infobip is set to inherit a lucrative piece of cake of the ''voice over IT'' services market as Peerless is a leader in this segment covering over 93 percent of the US population. It has more than 4,500 interconnections in 49 (US) states and a turnover of nine billion minutes per month across more than 200 markets.

''By taking over the Peerless Network, we're accelerating our international strategy. This is a very positive thing for Infobip from a financial, strategic and operational point of view. It enables us to grow our business even more strongly over in the USA, which is in line with the strategy of the Peerless Network,'' said Silvio Kutic, the CEO and co-owner of Infobip.

“Together, we'll offer companies and people around the world our services through a truly global network supported by local teams. Of course, the goal is to provide the best user experience on the market. We have an exciting period ahead of us and big things are just starting to happen for Infobip,'' he added.

“We're very excited about all the possibilities that the combination of Infobip and Peerless will bring. It will allowsus to scalably expand our services, capabilities and offers to our customers. By combining our market-leading voice offering and Infobip's global messaging capabilities, we're creating a strong foundation to become a leader in the fast-growing cloud communications market,'' said John Barnicle, CEO of Peerless Network.

"This acquisition will, among other things, enable Peerless Network to provide comprehensive support to its customers who have business needs outside of the United States," he added.

The range of services boasted by the Vodnjan Infobip company enables companies to communicate with a large number of their customers via messages, e-mail or chatbots. Among their clients are massive world names such as Uber, LG, Sberbank, and their services are also used (among recreational athletes) by the very popular Strava application. Peerless, on the other hand, brings a narrower segment of communication, VoIP, under the umbrella of Infobip.

Thus, the joint solutions of the two companies would ultimately be able to process more than 30 billion monthly user interactions across a full range of communication channels in more than 190 countries around the world.

When asked whether the acquisition of Peerless completely exhausted the aforementioned financial injection, Infobip didn't want to specify. It is to be assumed that this is not the case since it was previously announced that they would consider several acquisitions before going public, and it was confirmed to Bloomberg that "the takeover cycle isn't over".

Plans for an initial public offering of shares on the New York Stock Exchange are in full swing, and if we briefly recall, the CEO and co-owner Silvio Kutic told Bloomberg back in May that after the completion of funding (the latest rounds) the company could be ready for an IPO in the next 18 to 20 months.

In the first quarter of the year, the Vodnjan Infobip company's revenue grew 57 percent compared to the same quarter last year thanks to the acquisition of OpenMarkets, after which the valuation exceeded 1 billion US dollars, seeing Infobip crowned with the prestigious status of a unicorn. This year, they also took over the Croatian Shift franchise and the world's leading SMS firewall service provider, Anam Technologies from Ireland.

Infobip's expected revenues this year should amount to 1.2 billion euros, repesenting very rapid growth compared to last year's level of about 720 million euros, or about 600 million euros achieved back in pre-pandemic 2019.

For more, check out our business section.