ZAGREB, 22 June, 2021 - Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) president Milorad Pupovac said on Tuesday that adopting amendments to the Criminal Code to ban Ustasha insignia and the salute "For the homeland ready" was a civilisational issue for all political actors in Croatia.

Adopting amendments to the Criminal Code is a civilisational issue for all political actors in Croatia do that it can get rid of the legacy of World War II, especially the consequences of the Ustasha rule from 1941 to 1945," Pupovac said ahead of Antifascist Struggle Day commemoration in Brezovica.

Asked whether adopting the amendments to the Criminal Code would be a condition for the SDSS to support the government, Pupovac said that no one should set any conditions about that.

"We can only discuss how to do it," he said.

He said that the president of the Zagreb Jewish Community Ognjen Kraus convened a new meeting for Friday to discuss further steps towards resolving the issue of the Ustasha salute "For the homeland ready", adding that the final version of the bill of amendments to the Criminal Code was being prepared.

Pupovac welcomed the fact that the government was the organiser of this year's central Antifascist Struggle Day commemoration in Brezovica, stressing that this was very significant.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

June 22nd, 2021 - A small family that has embarked on a great mission - to make the world a more beautiful place to live, free of toxic chemicals is behind the Pero brand.

Journal reports, natural cleaning products have been found in households all over Croatia in just a few years, and their different approach to production and entrepreneurship can definitely be an example to others. More and more people around us are turning to natural products, and the awareness of preserving our own health and caring for the environment is finally coming to the list of priorities for many. Their efforts were recognized, and they participated in the Pokreni nešto svoje competition, where they received funding that gave them the wind in their sails. 

As a student of agronomy, Davor decided that everything he would do in life would be far from artificial pesticides, fertilizers, and chemicals that are widely used. He started working on his own cleansers made from natural ingredients. Thus was born the idea of ​​entrepreneurship that definitely encourages change in society and announces some new trends that will, we hope, be standardized in the future. 

 Pero Facebook

"The story started in 2016 when I started creating products with simple, purified, formulations, natural ingredients that do not harm people, animals, and the environment, that clean effectively and at the same time do not bring tears to the eyes. Nature has shown its strength, so I guess they no longer doubt that it can clean the house. Change starts with the individual, and it is good that more and more individuals are realizing this," said Davor. 

They set out with a desire to cleanse the world, or at least our little worlds of chemicals and toxins.

"The biggest problem is that people don’t know what kind of harmful chemicals they bring into their home. When you realize how much common cleansing products can affect the skin, eyes, hormonal and respiratory system, they quickly turn to Pero products. I am most pleased when those who doubt the effectiveness of our products after trying completely replace conventional products with Pero," he added. 

"Everything is produced by hand, in smaller batches, so we have complete control over the entire cycle. In addition, the French certification house ECOCERT controls our production processes and the raw materials we use. The raw materials we use are nutritional and pharmaceutical qualities, such as baking soda, citric acid, coconut soap, and glycerin. Natural fragrances are much more complex than synthetic ones, they have a relaxing effect, and they also have antibacterial and antiviral properties," he stated when asked about the kind of ingredients used. 

Pero Facebook

Last year they worked intensively on products that completely eliminate plastic packaging and waste accumulation, simplify the practice of sustainability. "These are zero waste pero®zero doses of powders that are converted in the tap water into dishwashing gels, bodies, cleaners… This reduces the amount of plastic waste in the household 30 times, leaves more storage space in cabinets and we take a concrete step for a better and healthier common future." 

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

ZAGREB, 22 June, 2021 - President Zoran Milanović attended a concert by the Croatian Navy Orchestra held in commemoration of Antifascist Struggle Day in Split on Monday evening, where he said that without harmony among the Croatian people there cannot be any progress.

"Without that harmony among the Croatian people, there cannot be any progress. We are few and only with joint effort, regardless of how worn out that may sound but it is worth repeating, can we go on further and can we progress," Milanović underscored.

This gathering here today, peaceful, civilised, civic, leftist, as well as traditionally Dalmatian, is an indicator that this is a normal and peaceful society that needs only a little to agree on some matters, he said.

He announced that he would attend the Antifascist Struggle Day commemoration in Brezovica on Tuesday, where the first antifascist uprising took place. 

Milanović said that he had come to Split "because of his grandfather and his brother and his grandmother and her brothers who did not go to war as antifascists, because they did not know what that meant."

He named those killed in the First Split Detachment comprising young communists from Split, saying that from today's comfortable perspective, that is difficult to comprehend.

"We do not have people like that today. They were the spark that lit the uprising, the people's uprising... I know that this day, these days, this holiday bothers some people in Croatia. I know that there was injustice, murder, unreason, because every revolution is rough, raw, unjust and quite often, if it doesn't eat them, it harms its children but that was the price they had to pay," he confirmed.

He recalled that the First Split Detachment comprised young communists from Split. "To be fair, they weren't fighters for democracy, they were revolutionaries, fierce, sometimes unjust," said Milanović.

He added that fifty years later some other people, Croatian fighters for freedom in the Homeland War, were prepared to courageously enter into battle, risking their lives.

Recently-elected Split Mayor Ivica Puljak attended the commemoration. It is our permanent obligation to create a society of equal opportunities in which freedom and mutual respect is accessible to everyone, he said.

"We always have to remember the fact that Croatia was founded on the values of antifascism and the Homeland War. In the hope that the contemporary challenges bring us even closer and strengthen our efforts to build a tolerant country open to everyone and to promote good on behalf of our future and the future of our children, I congratulate everyone on Antifascist Struggle Day," said Puljak.

The commemoration in Split was organised by the City of Split and Split-Dalmatia County as well as the county and city associations of antifascist fighters and antifascists, and the Association of Homeland War Veterans and Antifascists.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

June the 22nd, 2021 - It's been very hot all of a sudden across the entire country, with certain areas baking in temperatures which rarely dip below the 30 degree mark. This quite sharp rise in temperature has come as a shock to many after a strange, wet and rather cold spring. The first Croatian heatwave of 2021 can't go on forever, though.

While tourists love Croatian summers for their dry heat which allows for little else than constant floating around in the beautiful Adriatic sea, it gets very boring for those of us who live and work here, hoping each little cloud might bring some respite in the form of rain or even a breeze that doesn't cause a sweat. 

As summer makes itself known and we sit fanning ourselves in the middle of the first Croatian heatwave of 2021, it's difficult to imagine beind able to move around without our clothes sticking to us in the process. When might this hot snap end?

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, as was forecast by Tea Blazevic for N1, We're currently in the very first Croatian heatwave of this year, which has yet to culminate and will, with any luck, do so around the middle of the week. Temperatures locally could rise to an extremely and uncomfortably high 38, and the nights will be unpleasant, tropical, which means that the minimum temperature will not fall below 20.

It is therefore not surprising that a high-level heat wave warning is in force across the entire country, as such unforgiving temperatures can adversely affect human health in a multitude of ways. If her prognosis is anything to go off, towards the end of the week, things will thankfully begin to settle down and temperatures will drop again.

For more information on weather and what you can expect during your Croatian holiday this summer, follow our dedicated lifestyle section.

June the 22nd, 2021 - Croatian sustainable tourism experts are set to recieve a large sum of money for the promotion of this sort of tourism which has so much appealed to Croatia and which could bring about a longer season.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Ministry of Tourism and Sport announced a tender worth more than 1.3 million kuna for the development of Croatian sustainable tourism projects last week. As part of the EUSAIR Facitiy Point project, a financially attractive budget has been provided for the development of adopted project ideas for the development of sustainable tourism in the Adriatic-Ionian region, up to the stage of readiness for application and funding from EU funds.

Croatian sustainable tourism experts are expected to make a quality contribution in six months of the contract for topics that have been discussed and deemed important in the professional public for some time now. Expanding the tourist offer through the development of thematic tourist routes and merging that with cycling tourism, the stronger involvement of cultural heritage, the synergy of creative and cultural industries and the hospitality sector, connecting those engaged in tourism through regional and transnational projects and research - these are just some of the demands for those tasked with this job.

Important elements in the tender documentation state goals such as the development of new educational programmes for tourism professionals, the training and development of competencies for the unemployed, and the development of networks of Croatian sustainable tourism companies and clusters. An important component of the task is education and association, as well as the implementation of a system for sustainable destination management.

Potential bidders for this tender should provide two key experts for the development of project proposals with experience in EU projects. Procurement is divided into four groups, and each group consists of the development of one project, whose project idea has already been accepted by the managing authorities of the Adriatic-Ionian Strategy.

The CruiseAIR project, whose key goal is to prepare management plans for sustainable cruising tourism destinations. AIR Cultural Routes is a project aimed at developing tools for the integrated sustainable management of cultural routes at the level of the Adriatic-Ionian Strategy and achieving a balanced distribution of tourist flows. The goal of the ProDest AIR (MIQS) project is to develop a strategy and system for smart, sustainable, integrated destination management at the EUSAIR level and to design systems capable of responding to all real development challenges, needs, constraints, trends, risks and threats. The Living the Sea 4.0 project aims to expand the tourist offer through the digitisation of fisheries and their heritage and increase the availability of a common fishing history for the entire region.

The documentation for this open high-value public procurement procedure was published in the electronic public procurement notice on the 14th of June. The deadline for submission of bids is July the 26th, by 10:00. The Ministry of Tourism and Sport, together with their Albanian colleagues, is coordinating the topic of Sustainable Tourism for all ten countries of the Adriatic-Ionian Strategy, and winning such a job would be another opportunity and recognition for Croatian sustainable tourism experts.

For more, follow our travel section.

June the 22nd, 2021 - The highly unpopular topic of Croatian property tax might soon raise its ugly head again. The first time it was suggested a few years ago saw huge public pushback and it was since put back on the shelf, but never entirely scrapped.

As Novac/Marina Klepo writes, in order to secure revenues for local self-government units, Slavko Kojic, the former head of finance in the City of Zagreb, said recently, the tax system needs to be revised and the dreaded Croatian property tax needs to be introduced. He isn't the only one who is calling for that particular tax, the introduction of which in Croatia has failed twice, and ingloriously.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has sharply increased everyone's budget deficits, so, with the introduction of a global corporate tax rate, property taxation is most often mentioned as a desirable way to increase revenue. Whether or not that is a good idea is in the title of a recently published work by the ECB. An analysis considered by 23 countries shows that the contribution of property taxes to total budget revenues is small, averaging about six percent at most. It is higher in countries with higher tax rates (such as the UK and the USA), at about ten percent, and Croatia is among the countries where it is below two percent.

In the decade after 2007, the share of these revenues increased in 12 countries, mostly in Greece, from about one percent, to more than five percent. Croatia is among the countries where there has been no increase in these revenues.

“In general, property taxes to governments can be an effective means of increasing revenue and managing public finances, and increasing the effective tax rate and base can offset other taxes,” authors Marta Rodriguez-Vives and Miguel Angel Gavilan-Rubio believe.

The European Commission, the OECD and the ECB have long recommended that countries shift from labour taxation to a property tax, which is less detrimental to growth. Among other things, it results in greater investment in more productive sectors than the construction of houses and apartments. Previous research has shown that developing countries could collect an additional amount of about two percent of GDP from property taxation.

Whether, when and in what form the topic of Croatian property tax will be on the agenda again remains unknown. The last time the government tried to introduce it was back in 2017, but under pressure from the public, especially from the Lipa Association, which began collecting signatures against and threatening a referendum, it was shelved and the government eventually gave up.

The main argument of the opponents of Croatian property tax is that the tax pressure in Croatia is already too high and that it will affect the broadest sections of the population, given that 88 percent of Croatian households live in their own properties. However, the point of the tax isn't to cover the poor, but the richer sections of the population who have more at their disposal.

For more, follow our politics section.

June 22, 2021 - The Zagreb Tourist Board and the Zagreb County Tourist Board are again cooperating in promoting Zagreb and its surroundings through a unique destination campaign - Near the city, Near the heart / Around Zagreb. 

Near the City, Near the Heart is a joint promotional campaign created to develop a year-round platform to promote the rich offer of the capital and its surroundings, reports HRTurizam.

In this sense, as a destination campaign, it addresses key markets, promoting the outdoors, greenery, and nature with a focus on health and sustainability, and raising awareness of Zagreb and its surroundings as a desirable environment and tourist destination.

This year's edition of the campaign introduces certain novelties, and they are presented in more detail by the director of the Tourist Board, Martina Bienenfeld: “The success of the campaign so far has prompted us to improve our platform and present it to key markets. So - with a refreshed visual and itineraries - we created a new section, 'Did you know?' which presents interesting things from our environment. We are now launching the campaign in the markets of Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, and Germany, and we will soon expand it through cooperation with Krapina-Zagorje County."

"The campaign will be conducted online through advertorials and banners for a month. Advertorials will be adapted linguistically for each individual market and will present a rich cultural offer, with a focus on living in greenery, recreation, and sustainable tourism, all through interesting stories that present the current offer of Zagreb and its ring," explains Darja Dragoje from TZGZ.

In the last two years, the cooperation between these two tourist boards has grown into a whole series of campaigns and concrete tourist products that the guests of the capital can enjoy. The profession also recognized the partnership cooperation of these tourist boards as an example of cooperation in the field that brings very concrete results to all stakeholders.

The Zagreb County Tourist Board director, Ivana Alilović, says: "Domestic and foreign tourists do not think about administrative borders, but about the content. Precisely for this reason, the cooperation between the tourist boards of Zagreb and Zagreb County was logical. I am delighted that the director of Binenfield recognized the great potential of Zagreb County because Zagreb and the ring together are stronger. We have combined urban and rural, and with health and cultural tourism, rich outdoor content, and authentic enogastro offer, we have made this destination even more attractive. The enogastro service will focus on the new campaign, which with new visuals tells a new story of a metropolis and its surroundings, which complement each other with quality and rounded tourist products. With such facilities, we extend the stay of guests in both destinations."

The entire offer is united on aroundzagreb.hr, and information is currently available in Croatian, English, German and Slovenian.

For more, follow our travel section.

June 22, 2021 - The Bene beach lift has been installed to facilitate the lives of people with disabilities and limited mobility. in Split! 

Summer is well and truly here, and while Croatia's beaches are a dream for many, they can be quite difficult to navigate for people with limited mobility. 

Due to jagged coastlines, uneven pebbles, and rather awkward points of entry, everything that makes Croatia's beaches a wonder can also be a nightmare. But that has changed thanks to the City of Split, which has installed a lift for people with disabilities and limited mobility to facilitate swimming this summer! 

"This year, the city of Split has installed a lift on the beach in Bene, which enables easier entry into the sea for people with disabilities and people with limited mobility. The new elevator is from 2019 and is ready to use on the beach during the summer swimming season. 

Along with Žnjan, Bene beach is the second beach in Split with a modernized elevator and other facilities necessary for easier entry into the sea for people with disabilities.

Aqualifter is an automated device that safely allows independent entry and exit from the water without the intervention of outsiders. It is made of stainless steel and is equipped with a remote control radio for maneuvering with minimal effort and maximum user safety," said the City of Split.

You can see the new lift in action below:

"We hope that enjoying swimming and summer days for people with disabilities will be beneficial for health, as well as for rest!" said the City of Split. 

Bene beach is a favorite Split swimming spot located on Marjan hill. With a restaurant, sports activities, and dense pine forest, Bene becomes a popular summer gathering place for locals and tourists alike! 

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