ZAGREB, 17 April 2021 - Some of the Zagreb mayoral candidates have commented on Health Minister Vili Beroš's statements about the reform of the health system and debts to drug wholesalers and his ministry's business deals with firms involved in designing a platform for registration for COVID-19 vaccination.

The mayoral candidates commented on Beroš at separate news conferences held on Saturday, at which they spoke about their platforms for the 16 May local election.

Tomislav Tomašević, the mayoral candidate of the Zagreb is Ours/We Can! platform, said that Beroš's position had been shaken.

"He serves, in a way, as the prime minister's lighting rod for criticism, and he will be sacrificed when necessary. The problem with drug wholesalers is not just the minister's problem, it is a problem for the entire government and it is not being dealt with systematically, as confirmed by the finance minister," Tomašević said in a comment on Beroš's address at a session of the parliamentary health committee.

The Social Democratic candidate for Zagreb mayor, Joško Klisović, said that a minister who could not explain why he had paid HRK 4 million for a website that did not function should be replaced right away and that any responsible prime minister would have done it already.

The candidate of the Homeland Movement for Zagreb mayor, Miroslav Škoro, said that the health system needed a reform but that people "whose hands are tied" cannot carry out reforms.

"He asked for it, I think that he should be more resolute. We cannot go on without serious reforms. Serious reforms cannot be implemented by people whose hands are tied and his hands are tied by a coalition that is based on political trade-offs," Škoro said.

Mirando Mrsić, leader of the nonparliamentary Democrats party and former health minister, who will run in the May election as a candidate for deputy to Zagreb mayoral candidate Anka Mrak Taritaš (GLAS), called on Beroš to resign, saying that the cijepise.zdravlje.hr platform for vaccination registration was an "an amateur and non-functioning platform" for "pandemic profiteering".

"A couple of days ago Minister Beroš said that prices of health services would go up to patch holes in the health system and now we see that he is giving taxpayers' money to firms owned by his acquaintances," said Mrsić.

ZAGREB, 17 April 2021 - President Zoran Milanović said on Saturday the healthcare reform should resume from where his former government stopped with it and that Health Minister Vili Beroš evidently no longer had the support of his boss.

"Healthcare reform should be done where we stopped, which is the state's minimum debt to drug wholesalers. Obligations should be serviced... One should not create a business relationship if you can't service obligations. These are high costs. I can say exactly what I took over as prime minister, what we found and what we left behind in incomparably more difficult financial conditions," Milanović told reporters in Marčana.

He said his government was working in a far more difficult economic situation than the present one and under far more difficult borrowing terms.

Beroš will be discarded

Milanović went on to say that every minister should have the prime minister's support and that his Health Minister Siniša Varga "had full support and achieved a lot."

"Minister Beroš evidently doesn't have the support of his boss. He's here to be used up and discarded as a towel and that's what will happen to him. I'm sorry for that because he embarked on the job with lots of emotion and elan, perhaps too enthusiastically in some things, without realising who he was dealing with."

"Crises like this are a clear indicator and sign that something is not working in the relations between the top of the government and other ministers," Milanović said about the crisis caused by a recent suspension of drug supplies to hospitals due to the debt owed to drug wholesalers.

HDZ member is behind arguments that I have something to do with JANAF

Speaking of the JANAF oil pipeline operator, he said "an attempt is being made to create an argument that I have something to do with JANAF and Dragan Kovačević, and a member of the (ruling) HDZ is behind all that."

Kovačević is the former CEO of JANAF currently in custody on suspicion of bribe-taking and unlawful preferential treatment.

"These arguments are being put forth by the HDZ's spokesman, a man who during the war incited against Serbs in Croatia. That man is still the HDZ's spokesman. I won't name him, but the official newspaper of the Serb National Council, Novosti, wrote about him, so Pupovac and Plenković should see what to do about him."

Milorad Pupovac is a Croatian Serb MP whose party is part of the ruling coalition.

Milanović said "people like the HDZ's spokesman have no place in political parties, particularly not in a so-called centre-right party, which the HDZ is. He is a hater of everything that is Croatian and the author of those obscenities."

In February 2019, Novosti wrote about Andrej Rora as the head of the HDZ's press department.

Milanović said Kovačević came to the helm of JANAF via the Croatian People's Party, which at the time was led by Radimir Čačić.

Croatia has solid experience with local elections

Speaking of local elections, due in May, Milanović said they should be held and that the results should be made known as soon as possible, adding that Croatia had a solid experience with local elections.

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

April 17, 2021 - Former Croatia national football team captain Zvonimir Boban will become the UEFA head of football on Tuesday, taking over a position that did not exist before.

Jutarnji List reports that on Tuesday, April 20, Zvonimir Boban will officially become the head of football, or 'chief of UEFA football!' With the great desire and concrete action of President Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA will thus get the first football boss in history. The fact that he is a former great footballer gives this decision a special dimension.

There is no doubt that this is another huge recognition for Boban (53) after he held an almost identical position in FIFA from March 2016 to the summer of 2019. Recall, he worked as the right hand of President Gianni Infantino.

The Slovenian lawyer became the head of UEFA in 2016, and on many occasions, he cooperated and held contacts with FIFA, i.e., Zvonimir Boban. When Boban was with Infantino at FIFA, great reforms began, of which the epochal one was the introduction of VAR. Everyone in football institutions knows that Zvone Boban was the main promoter of introducing the technology as an assistant to referees. He personally supervised it to the maximum and demonstrated its importance for football at the World Cup in Russia. VAR was only one and the most significant reform; others are related to the game rules, restoring credibility to FIFA after years of scandals, and more.

In the summer of 2019, Boban responded to the invitation of AC Milan, the club in which he gained worldwide recognition as a player and one of the most trophy-winning foreigners in history, and took on the role of head of the football sector. Together with Paolo Maldini, he got down to business. Through many problems in the club's selection policy, he managed to stabilize Milan, and with the new coach Stefan Pioli, put together a new team.

But with his views, which he intended to restore the former splendor and credibility of the great Milan, he encountered resistance from American owners, too concentrated on running the club as a company and on the cusp of a financial business. Aware that they were working behind his back by secretly arranging other coaches and players and denying the agreed budget to strengthen the team, Boban spoke publicly about it. This provoked a reaction from the club's owners, and the cooperation was terminated after only nine months. Due to illegal actions in the unilateral termination of the contract, the Milan court ruled in favor of Boban, who also sued the club and ordered AC Milan to pay him the entire contract and compensation, which is a total of just over 5 million euro.

After that, aware of all the values Boban has as a charismatic football man, with experience in leading the world football organization, evident and consistent attitudes, and sufficiently diplomatic when compromises are necessary for the general football interest, Ceferin called on him to join UEFA.

In 2019, the Slovenian received a new mandate as the president of UEFA until 2023. The European Football House is facing major reforms in club competitions, challenges of new times, pandemic restrictions and adjustments, and many new epochal situations. Ceferin showed wisdom when he decided to strengthen his team.

Boban is tailored to the duty of the head of all football issues, and that is directly Ceferin's decision. Boban will be part of the President's Office, with great powers and responsibilities, as was the case at FIFA. Croatia will now have a new UEFA government and Executive Committee member Davor Šuker, and now and another representative, Boban, the head of football.

To follow the latest sports news in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

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ZAGREB, 17 April 2021 - In the past 24 hours Croatia has registered 2,627 new coronavirus cases and 37 related fatalities, the national COVID-19 response team said on Saturday.

A total of 2,014 patients are hospitalised, of whom 182 are on ventilators.

Since 25 February 2020, when the first case of coronavirus was detected in Croatia, a total of 306,225 people have been infected and 6,523 have died.

A total of 283,418 people have recovered, of whom 2,359 in the last 24 hours.

There are currently 32,994 people in self-isolation.

To date a total of 1,693,080 people have been tested for the virus, including 9,429 in the past 24 hours.

As of 16 April a total of 671,839 doses of vaccines have been administered, inoculating 539,487 people. Of that number, 405,097 people have received the first dose and 132,352 have received both doses. For 2,038 people there is no data on which dose they have received.

For more about COVID-19 in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 17 April 2021 - The Tourism Ministry has launched the "Croatian islands - COVID-free zones" campaign and will soon publish on  the www.safestayincroatia.hr website information on the epidemiological situation on islands, which have a much lower COVID-19 incidence than the counties they are located in.

"Croatia's epidemiological map currently shows islands as part of their counties even though the coronavirus incidence on islands is much lower than in other parts of the counties where they are located," the ministry said in a statement.

The website www.safestayincroatia.hr will therefore offer visitors not only information on the epidemiological situation in individual counties but also separate information on islands.

Croatia has 78 islands, 524 islets and 642 rock islets and reefs which are especially attractive to tourists and which account for a large portion of tourism turnover.

Tourism and Sports Minister Nikolina Brnjac has said that islands are exceptionally important for Croatia's tourism industry because they account for one-quarter of all overnight stays, with tourists' stay on islands being two days longer than the stay of tourists visiting coastal destinations.

"Also, one-third of accommodation capacity is located on islands, and that is another reason why it is important that we have exact information on the epidemiological situation on islands, many of which are green zones," she said.

The www.safestayincroatia.hr website will also contain information on all COVID-19 testing points as well as information on air, land and sea transport connections between islands and the mainland.

For more on travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

April 17, 2021 - Two years ago I moved from Peru to Croatia. Thousands of returnees like me are hurting each year to leave our countries behind. But we have to look forward.

My parents taught me and my siblings from a very young age to value and appreciate the best of Peru: its people, our history, our culture, our traditions, our food, our ecosystems, and much more. That, no matter what, we should always speak with pride of our country when a foreigner asks us about it. In the same way, and as we have grown and had experiences that eventually proved it, we learned to recognize that there were not just one or two, but an immeasurable amount of problems in our country. And that we needed to recognize those them, criticize whoever we had to, and work on solutions to overcome those problems.

We have normalized a very harmful lifestyle, in which parents always say goodbye to their children when they go out to study, work, or with their friends with a ‘‘please, take care of yourself. Let me know when you arrive and let me know when you return’’. We have normalized discriminating against our compatriots based on where they live, the color of their skin, their way of speaking, and more. We have normalized reducing women to the minimum expression within society. We have normalized attacking gay or trans people and even make them invisible among the population. We have normalized that our natural resources should be exploited at the cost of the destruction of our environment and our Andean and indigenous communities. We have normalized electing politicians who represent self-interest and destructive ideals. We are now living in a country where everything is normal and terribly wrong at the same time.

The day came when I moved from Peru to Croatia. As I landed at the Franjo Tuđman Airport in October 2019 and looked down at the city of Zagreb, I thought about how I could put all my personal conflicts behind, but I couldn't help but think that I was leaving all that I had normalized for so long. It is part of who I am now. And not all of it was bad.

Six days ago, in the midst of one of our worst moments during the current pandemic, Peru held its presidential and congressional elections. I had distanced myself from political discussions about my country for the simple fact that I did not feel that I could really contribute something real while being so far from there, except for voting.

After an atypical electoral day, the electoral results seem to indicate that there will be a second round. Between whom? One for sure is a radical left candidate, named Pedro Castillo; and the other is Keiko Fujimori, recently released from pretrial detention on charges of corruption and money laundering, and daughter of dictator Alberto Fujimori.

Likewise, it is almost definite that our congress will be represented, in its majority, by ultra-conservative political parties. I followed most of the election day on social media, and I felt everyone's concern and confusion from a distance. It is true that Peruvians may be surprised one day in one way and the next in another, but something is very true and that is that difficult times are coming for women’s rights and the LGBTQ community.

It was during these recent weeks that I tried to imagine all the possible scenarios my country would face with each candidate, and I realized that despite all my attempts to assimilate that my life had already taken another course here in Croatia, I am still Peruvian and the problems of my friends, family, and compatriots are mine as well. 

Most of the people I have met here in Croatia were surprised when I said that one of the reasons I came here was to flee the toxic environment of a country steeped in corruption, lack of opportunities, and insecurity on the streets. ''Peru to Croatia? Don't you know we have a corrupt country as well?''. I get that a lot.

I know that I could spend hours discussing and demonstrating that the political situation not only in my country but in the entire continent is much more serious, but I do understand what they are trying to tell me. In the same way, I see that there is also a very complex situation regarding the migration of young Croatians for better jobs and wages in Europe and even beyond. We are different, definitely, but not as much as I thought. There’s no perfect country, and the margin of improvement is huge.

It is when I process all this information that I can reach a very valuable conclusion, and it is about the responsibility we have as citizens of a country or immigrants, and even more so if we are both at the same time. And this is something that I have learned a lot in recent years, meeting several South Americans of Croatian descent here: we run away from something, and at the same time we do not run away at all. It doesn't matter how far away we are.

It is now that I think of Pero Kusijanović, our ancestor who left the small town of Mokošica and set out for Peru almost 150 years ago. I think of my grandmother, who left everything and went to Spain. I think of my aunts, who have lived in the United States for approximately 30 years. I think of the millions of Croats and Peruvians who have historically migrated to leave everything behind and seek a better future ahead. But is it worth keeping looking back once we made it out?

I think this was told to me by my psychologist a few years ago, but it's an analogy that I really appreciate, about the idea of ​​moving forward and leaving something behind. He told me that life was like driving a car. We cannot drive just by constantly looking at the rearview mirrors, taking into account that we can hit someone or something in front of us. Just as we cannot drive without seeing them, because we could be hit by someone or something behind.

What I believe is that we have a great responsibility to raise the best of our countries whenever we have the opportunity, as well as to be critical and reflect on what is really wrong there in the distance. I know it is difficult to think about the idea of change or the way we can be part of it when the only thing that brings us closer to our country are social networks and the news, but it is a matter of being patient and being prepared when the opportunity arises. Be proud, be critical. Moving from Peru to Croatia distanced me physically from my country, but not entirely.

I cannot say, however, all of the above without finishing by saying that at the end of the day we are not just Peruvians, Chileans, Argentines, Bolivians, Venezuelans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Brazilians, Uruguayans, Paraguayans, or Croats. As human beings, it is also important to ensure our happiness, our goals, our mental health, and the well-being of our families. Sometimes the best choice (sometimes the only choice) is to climb on a plane and fight it off elsewhere, even if it hurts. The decision of moving, migrating, and leaving everything behind is something we should never be ashamed of.

If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that I am happy to know that the place I went to was Croatia. Why? It is a country that has suffered as much as mine in the last 40 years. There’s so much to be done, but so much to be proud of. That way, I won't lose sight of where I come from, and the mission I still have to accomplish.

In the next weeks, TCN will be working on a series about the South American Diaspora in Croatia. If you're part of the South American Diaspora in Croatia and would like to share your story, send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

For more about the Croatian Diaspora, visit our dedicated page here.

ZAGREB, 17 April 2021 - The anti-corruption office USKOK back in January this year asked to inspect contracts between a company owned by Vinko Kojundžić and the Health Ministry, Jutarnji List reports on Saturday, noting that a HRK 5.2 million deal was signed by Minister Vili Beroš and the companies Cuspis, IN2 and In-Con.

According to unofficial reports, anti-corruption investigators at the beginning of this year launched a preliminary probe into some of the contracts and deals signed by the Health Ministry and IN2 and Cuspis, whose founder and director Vinko Kojundžić designed the COVID-19 vaccination registration platform cijepise.zdravlje.hr where citizens frequently have problems when registering for vaccination.

The platform drew the interest of the Telegram news portal which on several occasions tried to obtain an answer from the ministry as to who had designed it but to no avail.

The portal eventually discovered the answer on its own, after which Cuspis director Kojundžić admitted that he was the author of the platform from which the companies IN2 and Ericsson Nikola Tesla distanced themselves on Friday after Minister Beroš earlier in the day said the two companies had worked on the platform as well.

Jutarnji List has learned that anti-corruption investigators have allegedly requested from the Health Ministry "complete documentation on six public procurement procedures in which the ministry was the client."

The daily says that Kojundžić was politically active in the 1990s in the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Youth and that he designed the HDZ's first website.

At one time he reportedly also worked in the Konzum retail chain and his name cropped up in media reports when anti-corruption investigators in 2009 raided the offices of the Croatian Health Insurance Institute (HZZO) over alleged suspicion concerning the work of its IT department.

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

ZAGREB, 17 April 2021 - The KOHOM association of family doctors on Saturday dismissed as untrue Health Minister Vili Beroš's claim that they indiscriminately refer non-emergency patients to emergency services and that not enough family doctors have joined mobile teams for vaccination against COVID-19 in Zagreb.

KOHOM says in a statement that it most strongly condemns the part of the draft reform measures, presented by the minister at a session of the parliamentary health and social policy committee, which concern primary health care.

Beroš said a major anomaly in primary health care was "the referral of non-emergency patients to hospital emergency services" and "an inadequate response by primary health care doctors" to the call to join mobile teams for the vaccination of bedridden or severely ill people.

Dismissing the minister's statements as "utter lies", KOHOM says that Beroš is attempting to blame huge omissions in the functioning of the health system on family doctors.

"Family doctors are definitely well educated and trained to recognise the severity of a patient's condition and they most certainly do not refer patients just because they want to make their colleagues' work harder but do so exclusively in line with professional rules."

KOHOM recalls that any person with health concerns can go to a hospital emergency service on their own because that way they can do tests quickly and get a diagnosis.

"Patients go to hospital emergency services on their own because otherwise they have to wait for individual diagnostic procedures for months, sometimes six months or a year," KOHOM says, adding that Beroš and his predecessors are the only ones to blame for that "because they did not know how to or did not want to reduce waiting lists for specialist examinations."

As for the minister's remark that not enough family doctors had applied to join mobile vaccination teams in Zagreb, KOHOM says that it called on the minister in December 2020 to form mobile teams and that family doctors at the time made themselves available.

Recalling that Beroš sent an instruction for public health institutes to form mobile teams to vaccinate bedridden or seriously ill patients in situations where family doctors cannot do it, KOHOM says that mobile teams in Zagreb were not formed.

Those teams function, and they function quite well, only in Split-Dalmatia County, KOHOM says, claiming that vaccination is almost entirely the responsibility of family doctors and calling on the minister to "finally organise effective mass vaccination and the system of which he is in charge."

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