ZAGREB, Sept 15, 2020  - Korean culture and language course was launched on Monday at the Faculty of Croatian Studies (HS) of the University of Zagreb, the faculty informed on Tuesday.

Ninety-six students enrolled in the course, which is beyond all expectations, and for the next 16 weeks, they will attend free classes four hours a week. This course is due to last until 28 December.

The enrolment quota was filled in just five days, HS said and added that the greatest interest was by students (79), while other entrants are 13 working people enrolled in the course and four secondary school students.

The course is being conducted in cooperation between the University of Zagreb and Chung-Ang University in Seoul and the King Sejong Institute Foundation (KSIF) 

The course will be taught by EunGyeong Kim from Seoul, with administrative support by Lin Seonghyun Kwon, a post-graduate student of Croatian Studies.

HS Dean Pavo Barisic welcomed Ms. Kim and entrants and expressed his pleasure that in Croatia a King Sejong Institute was opened.

Barisic noted that the institutes of the King Sejong Foundation exist in 76 countries, 26 of which are in Europe.

More than 130 countries have applied for this year's call for cooperation and 30 new institutes have been approved, Barisic said. He underscored however that this is a great honor for the Croatian Studies Faculty.

The course will be available for at least three years and if interest continues the course may be extended in the future, according to Barisic's statement.

Once the students have completed the course they will be eligible for a student or working visa in South Korea.

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ZAGREB, Sept 15, 2020  - Croatia and Malta are the two EU countries that saw the weakest growth of hourly labor costs in the second quarter of this year, many times lower than the EU average, which was supported by a strong increase in wage costs, shows a report from the EU's statistical office Eurostat.

In the EU27, working day-adjusted hourly labor costs grew by 4.1% in Q2 compared to the same period of last year. In Q4 2019, they grew by 3.9%.

In the euro area, hourly labor costs in Q2 grew by 4.2%, after a 3.7% increase in the previous three months.

Wage costs in both the EU and the euro area grew more strongly than in Q1 despite measures introduced to contain the coronavirus. In the EU they grew by 5.3%, after a 4.1% increase in Q1, while in the euro area they rose by 5.2%, after a 3.9% increase in Q1.

In both the EU and the euro area, the increase in hourly wage costs indicates that the decrease in the number of hours worked, due to the COVID-19 crisis, was not fully compensated by a matching decrease in wages, says Eurostat.

This increase in hourly wage costs was partly compensated by the moderate increase in the non-wage component, due to tax reliefs and subsidies introduced by EU governments to support enterprises affected by the crisis.

Hourly labor costs in the EU grew the most in the services sector, by 4.3%, followed by industry and construction, where they grew by 3.9% and 2.3% respectively.

In the euro area, the services sector saw the strongest increase in total labor costs, of 4.4%, followed by industry, with an increase of 3.8%, and construction, with a 2.8% increase.

Labor costs grow least in Malta, Croatia

Of the EU countries for which data was available, Romania saw the strongest increase in hourly labor costs in Q2, of 16.1%, almost twice as high as in Q1.

Croatia and Malta saw the weakest growth in hourly labor costs, of 0.7% and 0.8% respectively. In Q1 hourly labor costs in Croatia grew by 0.6%.

Wage costs in Croatia grew by 1.5% n the period from April to June, almost the same rate as in Q1. The cost of contributions dropped by 3.9%, after a 4.2% decline in Q1.

The largest drop in hourly labor costs in the EU in Q2 was reported by Cyprus, of 8.6%, followed by Ireland, with a drop of 3.3%.

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ZAGREB, Sept 15, 2020  - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday that Split Mayor Andro Krstulovic Opara enjoys his support when asked if Krstulovic Opara would run in the next local election, set for May 2021.

Plenkovic made the statement for the press after meeting with Krstulovic Opara and Split County head Blazenko Boban, also a member of the HDZ party.

HDZ has a lot of candidates for local election

Asked who could be the HDZ's candidate for the mayor of Zagreb, Plenkovic said that "the HDZ has a lot of candidates."

"We will have good candidates, there is enough time left for that. The HDZ has a lot of candidates," Plenkovic said, denying speculation by some media outlets that Finance Minister Zdravko Maric was a likely candidate for the post of Zagreb Mayor.

Plenkovic also commented on the Constitutional Court's decision of Monday that laws on the powers of the national COVID-19 response team, passed by the parliament, were in line with the Constitution and that most of the team's decisions were lawful.

Constitutional Court's support very good in terms of legal security

"The COVID response team and the government yesterday received support from the Constitutional Court which either dismissed (complaints) or declared that practically all of the team's decisions were constitutional and in line with relevant laws. I believe this is very good in terms of legal security and the fact that our actions were based on Article 16 of the Constitution and we made decisions in the context of a declared epidemic, to protect citizens' health," he said.

If the fight against COVID-19 in the spring had not been successful, we would not have achieved 50% of the results of last year's tourist season, which was the best ever, he stressed.

Commenting on the HDZ's pre-election promise about a Sunday trading ban, and the fact that the Constitutional Court ruled that the COVID-19 response team's decision to ban Sunday trading was not in line with the Constitution, Plenkovic recalled that some surveys showed that as many as 80% of Croatians were in favor of a Sunday trading ban.

Gov't to put forward balanced law on non-working Sunday

"We believe it would be good and in the interest of the family and a healthy balance between work, rest, and spending time with one's dearest ones. During this term the government will put forward a bill that will seek a balance between a non-working Sunday and a certain number of working Sundays," he said.

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ZAGREB, Sept 15, 2020 - The 19th Pride parade will be held on September 19, and this year its participants will start their walk, seeking constitutional equality and a society free of gender and sexual norms and categories, in St. Mark's Square, where the government and parliament buildings are located. 

"This year we fight for constitutional equality and the right to freedom, within and outside our own four walls... the Constitution currently poses a wall for us because it restricts our freedoms. We must bring that wall down," the organizers of the Pride parade, Zagreb Pride, said.

This is the first time Pride marchers will gather outside the parliament and government buildings and the Constitutional Court.

"This is not so by chance, we will be there to ask the highest authorities of our republic to bring down the walls that still restrict our rights and continue to treat our families as second-class citizens," the organizers said, demanding that a procedure be launched to amend the constitution to make all families equal in their rights and obligations.

As for a recent decision by the Constitutional Court which enabled same-sex partners to provide foster care, they said it showed clearly how much the constitutional restriction of 2013 "is obsolete, nonsensical and unnatural."

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September 15, 2020 - Continuing our series on Zagreb’s international food offer and the stories behind these cuisines and businesses. This time, Croatia's only pan-Slavic food specialists - Boršč

My name is Demian and I'm from Ukraine. My mother worked in Croatia, so I went to high school and to college here. She used to work in diplomacy. We moved around a lot. We went from Ukraine to Serbia, back to Ukraine, then to Croatia. Since coming here, aged around 15, I've been back to Ukraine only for visits – a month or two at maximum. Although I'm from western Ukraine, Lviv, a cultural town near the border with Poland, I also speak Russian and Croatian. And English. Apart from English, they're all Slavic languages, so you can find many words that have the same root. But, knowing both, I can say that the Russian and Croatian languages are really different from each other. Ukrainian is quite similar to Russian, although not as similar as some of the Balkan languages are to each other.

We opened Boršč four years ago. It started as a family business, me and my mum. We wanted to stock all the things we missed. Food and drinks from Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Estonia and Lithuania.

Ukrainian food is really not so sophisticated. Some dishes can take many hours to prepare and cook, but ingredients-wise, it's really not complicated. For instance, we have varenyky – the nearest thing you'd know them as is pierogi from Poland. They are traditional dumplings. You can fill them with anything you want. Cabbage. Potatoes, mushrooms. Potatoes and mushrooms. There are sweet versions with cherries or berries like strawberry. The savoury ones we usually fry in a pig fat which has some meat on it. It's a bit like Croatian čvarci, but softer and with more meat attached.

We have boršč. The recipe is a bit different to the Russian ones. Several countries lay claim to the soup. But, many do say that it is originally Ukrainian. Its name comes from a green plant which grows there, in wet areas, borschevik. The original boršč was green, not purple from beets. We still make the green one now, sometimes with different ingredients, and more often in summer. Sometimes it's completely vegetarian, other times it has meat and some people cook it using only vegetables and beef or pork bones.

I've never come across a country more reliant on pig meat than Ukraine. If you think that Croatians eat a lot of pig, you should go to Ukraine! You have much more beef, veal and lamb in the Croatian diet. Those dishes you don't have regularly in the Ukrainian diet. We do eat chicken and, yes, there are some beef dishes. The fish we eat is completely different to that eaten in Croatian – ours comes from the Black sea, the Baltic or the North sea. The most popular is salmon. To be honest, I don't know the English names of the other fish, ha! I'm sure people in the UK have the same ones on their menu.

The climate in Ukraine can be tough. It's much colder there. Potatoes and cabbage grow well. In Croatia, you have beautiful tomatoes and green salad. You would not see that in Ukraine. But, our potatoes are the best. The land is very fertile, particularly in central Ukraine. It's good for growing.

In Boršč we sell several kinds of fish which are popular in Ukraine and Baltic countries – salmon, herring and trout. Our smoked salmon comes from the north sea. Almost everything in the shop comes from Europe, much of it from Norway, like the salmon, the red caviar, other fish. This salmon is actually smoked in the Netherlands. In Croatia, salmon is usually sliced thinly in the stores. They don't have the tradition like in northern countries to sell it in these styles of pieces. It's a really popular item in the store. We have caviar from the North sea, some from the Caspian sea. And we have salt cod – bakalar in Croatian - and cod liver, which is incredibly popular in Ukraine. It's considered a delicacy and is something of a national dish, often served on toast.

Chocolates from Russia, Ukraine and Poland were one of the biggest revelations TCN tried at Boršč - they were incredible! They have a higher content of (expensive) cocoa and less (cheap) sugar than most of the chocolates made in Croatia

Sweets are really good in Ukraine and Russia. They're very different to sweets in western Europe. And different to those in Croatia too. Something like Lindt is much more sweet and buttery. Ukrainian and Russian sweets have a higher percentage of cocoa. Some of our Croatian customers are chocolate connoisseurs and these are very popular with them. Another popular purchase made by Croatians is halva – it's usual to only find the Turkish ones here. They are quite tough, made from sesame. Ours are softer, made from sunflower.

The colourful display of pan-Slavic specialist chocolates dominates the centre of the shop - you so want to try them all!

We have dark beers and light beers. They're from Lithuania, Russia and Poland. We have wines from Moldova and Georgia. We have sparkling wines from Russia and Ukraine. The Georgian wine is the best we have. Georgia claims to be the oldest winemaking country in the world. Winemaking is proven to be at least 8000 years old there. They have the oldest indigenous grape in the world. Georgians bury their wine underground in Kvevri - huge clay jars, which add an extra flavour. After the wine is fermented like this, it doesn't require the addition of preservatives when being bottled.

We have many preserved vegetables, like yellow tomatoes, seasonings and different types of sunflower seed, condiments that might be comparable to ajvar. This one is from Georgia and is a spicy mix of vegetables, using garlic, paprika and horseradish. One of our best-selling items is actually condensed milk. It's used not only in the Slavic kitchen but in the cuisine of Asia and South America.

This is kvass. It's a fermented drink, but it's non-alcoholic. It's popular in all north European countries, the whole Baltic region and especially popular in Russia. The taste is very specific. It's somewhere between Coca cola and beer. The ones we sell come from Russia and Ukraine. We also have a couple of types of birch juice. It's a traditional non-alcoholic drink made from the sap of the birch tree. It's maybe a little comparable to Croatia bazga, but much, much less sweet. It's very healthy. The sugars in it are natural ones. It has an incredibly refreshing taste and maybe a very soft lemon aroma (TCN tried this – it was amazing!)

Some of the most prestigious items we sell are the varieties of hard alcohol. We have Armenian brandies. This one, Ararat, is considered to be the best one in the world. We have several vodkas, including Beluga, which is a premium vodka from Russia. We have a Ukrainian vodka and we have a honey and pepper flavoured one too. You can easily tell the quality of a vodka from the aroma and the aftertastes.

Most of our customers are actually Croatian - around 60%. Russians and Ukrainians are the next highest percentage. We have some Polish and Lithuanian people come in, but it's usually young people who are here to study with Erasmus.

I've been living in Croatia for about 11 years now. I enjoy life here. Everything is simple, easy, relaxed. It's considered one of the safest countries to live. And you can really feel that. It feels safer than the other two countries where I've lived. I'm maybe too young to yet know if I will stay here forever, but I can definitely say that I enjoy Croatia.

You can visit Boršč at Vlaška 58 (ulaz s trga Drage Iblera)

Here you can read the introduction to our series on Zagreb international cuisine and the first installment

To follow our whole series on international cuisine and to follow the Croatian restaurant and gastro scene, keep an eye on our Gourmet pages

All photographs © Mateo Henec

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As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 15th of September, 2020, the arrival of Eurospin Croatia has taken the country's bargain hunters by storm and caused quite the stir among commentators and competitors.

''We don't know who their sources of supply are, but the retail prices of some items with which they started aggressively at the beginning with are lower than those we're achieving in procurement,'' states the comment of some Croatian retailers on the new Eurospin Croatia store.

The Italian discount store Eurospin has just opened its fourth store in Croatia, in Velika Gorica close to Zagreb, in just under one month, and according to the announcements, it should conclude this year with 20 stores with a total of 500 employees. The philosophy of "smart shopping" is justified by the dominant offer of private labels, while of the Croatian products in Eurospin Croatia's current catalog offer of fruits and vegetables, there are only tomatoes (250 g for 6.99 kn), potatoes (5 kg for 10.99 kn) and cabbage (1.69 kn / kg).

It appears that they have already lost one Croatian supplier. The Zarja group from Kerestinec, known for its brand Rajska, has already terminated their contract with them.

''We started working with them and then realised that they work without a margin, just to go with the lowest possible prices. We gave them a normal price like everyone else, to be followed by calls from other angry customers that we give Eurospin our goods below cost,'' said the Zarja Group co-owner Zvonimir Belic for Vecernji list, explaining how such things do happen elsewhere, but in agreement with retailers - and for a short time, meaning only when actions are planned.

However, Eurospin Croatia's unilateral decision forced them to put their cooperation on hold until relations improved. Martin Evacic, head of NTL and the HUP Trade Association, also noted that Eurospin set a price alert at the beginning of its operations.

''It's difficult to get into that, but other retail chains don't have such sources to sell their goods at such low prices. It's obvious that this is being done without earnings or with minimal earnings, so this can't be maintained in the long run on the market,'' he believes.

When asked about business and aggressive prices from Eurospin Croatia, Vecernji list didn't receive an answer until the conclusion of the article.

''Eurospin Croatia will operate stably and profitably, as has been the case in recent years in Slovenia, and in our country it will occupy approximately 3-4 percent of the market. There will be more changes due to the fact that the Schwartz Group has become a market leader and its companies Lidl and Kaufland are continuing to open new outlets, and that the Polish fund Enterprise Investors (EI) acquired by Studenac has announced the further development of its acquisitions to annual turnover of about five billion kuna, covering the entire Croatian market,'' claimed Munjiza.

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ZAGREB, Sept 15, 2020 - The coronavirus crisis caused the beef industry facing collapse, the Baby Beef association said on Tuesday, adding that Agriculture Minister Marija Vuckovic has promised HRK 60 million in support for that industry.

The association said that the industry was facing collapse and that is why they called for an urgent meeting with Minister Vuckovic.

The meeting was held last week and Minister Vuckovic announced subsidies similar to those in other countries, notably Slovenia and France, in order to bail out the cattle breeding industry.

It was agreed that HRK 60 million would be paid to the industry in two installments, with the first installment at the end of this year and the second installment by the end of February 2021.

That would cover part of our losses and would resolve the issue of current and future surpluses, the association said.

The association warned that the corona crisis has meant huge problems for cattle breeders who produce about 120,000 yearling beef each year and generate about HRK 1.3 billion in revenue.

The association said that currently, producers have a surplus of about 30,000 yearlings, and by the end of the year that could increase to about 70,000.

That is the result of excessive imports of beef from EU countries that subsidize their cattle breeding industry, and this has threatened our market, the association said.

The association said that as soon as the crisis broke out, Slovenia and France subsidized their products with €100 per head.

Croatian farmers cannot compete with those prices, the association added.

The Baby Beef association brings together about 330 cattle breeders who account for 90% of the beef sector in the country and raise about 120,000 yearlings a year.

About two-thirds of cattle are sold live to the Middle East or as meat to Italy while one-third is sold on the domestic market.

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September 15, 2020 – Construction of the Pelješac bridge continues despite the ongoing pandemic – a monster-sized shipment of bridge segments is currently on its way to Croatia

The Pacific Alert is 160 metres long and 27 metres wide. She set sail from Nantong, China on 10th September. Her cargo? 4000 tons of the Pelješac bridge.

We say 4000 tons, but, that's a slight exaggeration. The actual weight of the Pelješac bridge pieces she carries is more accurately 3,840 tons. The 13 pieces are heavy construction elements for the bridge and are expected to arrive in Croatian waters on 5th October.

This is the second such heavily loaded ship to set sail for Croatia carrying the Pelješac bridge parts, which have been constructed in China. The first ship with Peljesac bridge segments arrived in February this year, but production in China was thereafter halted due to coronavirus. The recent arrival of 100 Chinese welders who will connect the Peljesac bridge segments, and the resuming of production in China, indicate that the project is back on track despite the ongoing pandemic.

The Peljesac bridge will connect south Dalmatia to the rest of Croatia and will negate crossing the time-consuming Bosnian border to reach Dubrovnik. This will improve southern Croatia's accessibility to road users. The region of Dubrovnik and Neretva has in 2020 suffered worst from a fall in visitor numbers because it is mostly reliant on charter flights and large cruise ships. The activities of airlines and such ships has been curtailed by coronavirus.

The Pacific Alert is a general cargo ship that was built in 2010 and is sailing under the flag of Cyprus.

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