June 9, 2020 - How is the Croatia border control working? TCN takes an exclusive tour of the working system, and our verdict is 10 out of 10 for the Croatian police and border control. As for the tourism chiefs... 

Until last week I had only met one government minister in my 18 years here, as well as Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

(Photo credit Vivian Grisogono)

I met the current PM a couple of years ago in Jelsa, when he called me over for a chat, a chat which ended with a promise that he would not be suing me. 

The only minister I met was the then Foreign Minister, Vesna Pusic, who kindly agreed to be my first ever interview on a new news portal called Total Croatia News, which launched on July 7, 2015. You can read the interview here. 

Last week, I met two ministers in the same week, and both very fascinating insights into the current situation in the corridors of power as Croatia presides over the Presidency of the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

First up, Minister of Tourism Gari Cappelli, who called me up for a chat and meeting in his office, during which he gave TCN some exclusive updates on the plans of the EU to open borders. You can read the interview here. 

On May 17th, I visited the Croatian - Slovenian border with Kresimir Macan, former communications director for PM Plenkovic. As information about the actual situation at the border crossing was so unclear, I requested - and received - permission to visit the border with Macan to report on the situation first hand. It was quite an eye-opening experience: Who Can Cross the Croatia Slovenia Border? Who Cannot? A May 17, 2020 Border Visit

Since that visit to the border, an online registration form became available on the Interior Ministry website at the address entercroatia.mup.hr. The form, now in 11 languages, was intended to speed up the border procedure, as well as help the police track all visitors in the event of a corona outbreak. 

At our May 17 border visit, the pace of the border control was painfully slow. The border police had to manually enter the details of the reservation and record contact details. Each car was taking 5-8 minutes to process, which would clearly be a disaster in the peak season. An emergency software fix was procured, and I was curious to see how it worked. I will refer to it more below, but this information is important for EVERY foreign visitor to Croatia at the moment, whether you are coming by land, sea or air. 

1. If you fill the form in with your details (choose from 11 languages), you will receive an email from the police confirming receipt. Print this off, as well as your confirmed reservation, and show at any borders you encounter on the way, and you will be allowed to transit. 

2. The procedure to proceed through the border if you have already registered is less than one minute, so 5-8 times quicker than three weeks ago. Simply hand over your passport, which will be scanned. All relevant details will be sent to Interpol, Schengen, and the Croatian ministries of health, tourism and the interior. This includes all the accommodation details and your contact numbers entering into the system. It is an outstandingly efficient system and is reducing the waiting time at the border considerably. 

3. Even if you are from the 10 countries which now have open borders with Croatia, the official advice is to fill in this form, because it will reduce the waiting time at the border. 

A fabulous system, put together in record time, and severely reducing the waiting times at the border just in time for peak season. Congratulations to the Croatian police and all involved in the project. 

My tour was organised by Marina Mandic, the Ministry PR lady. It was such a seamless service that I actually felt I was no longer in Croatia, but had been transported to another country where efficiency was the order of the day. 

I am often very critical of Croatian officials, so here it is, when I see someone doing an outstanding job,  I am happy to tell the world. Bravo, Ms. Mandic, and thank you for such a fascinating tour.  

Minister Bozonovic was happy to chat and answered various questions that I had. It was a very organised process from start to finish. 

After an overview of border procedures with the Assistant Head of the Border Police Directorate, Gilio Toic Sintic, it was time to enter the room about which I was most curious - to meet the team answering all the emails from tourists trying to get official information about their particular cases - would they be allowed to visit Croatia?

After a slow start, the official information about travel to Croatia started to come together. The best source of information came on the Interior Ministry website, and a dedicated FAQ section covered most of the questions. For those who could not find an answer to their question (or were too lazy to search), there was a form to fill in where you could post your question. This FAQ and form is available in English, German and Croatian.  

Two days after Kreso Macan and I returned to the border visit of May 17, we launched the Viber community, Total Croatia Travel INFO in an attempt to try and help tourists find the latest information and answer their questions, as there was so much confusion out there. 

We also started a daily travel update page, with all the latest information and links to the latest news. Soon after that, we had the daily travel update available in 24 languages. 

One of the many interesting bits of feedback we got from our new Viber community (join here, but you need to download the app), was that it was taking 5, 8, 9 days to get an answer from the official email address at the ministry - if there was an answer at all. I was curious to find out why, and so I was curious to meet the team answering the emails. 

It was quite an eye-opener. 

Meet part of the dedicated team from the Croatian police department (that's right, while Croatia is breathing tourism, it is left to the police to answer those tourist questions such as 'when will flights to Split start?' 28,000 questions so far. Questions in Hungarian and Portuguese. So many emails, indeed, that the Croatian police have had to request help from police departments all over the country.

In a land of a national tourist board, 20 regional and 319 local tourist boards, a Ministry of Tourism, and a tourism section in the Croatian Chamber of Economy, there was nobody free to answer the emails, so the police have had to allocate extra resources to help. 

At a time when police resources are already stretched due to corona. Ministry of the Interior 3, the official Croatian tourism chaps 0. 

I was expecting to find huge inefficiency due to the unanswered emails, but quite the opposite. Here was a dedicated bunch of people working hard to get through the mountain of emails. In all manner of languages that they could not comprehend. 

I offered to show them some tools which could help reduce the job. I showed them our Viber community and our travel update.  

And our travel update in 24 languages. Feel free to send the link, copy a paragraph of info, whatever it is that you need to do to make your job easier. 

Two immediate takeaway suggestions I have to share with you. 

1. If your enquiry is tourism-related, send your enquiry to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This is the Croatian National Tourist Board, and they are one of the most responsive press departments I have encountered in Croatia. They will (or should) have better information on tourism matters than the police. 

2. If you want a quicker response from the police to your enquiry, they can comfortably cope with enquiries in English, German and Croatian. If you send your enquiry in Portuguese or Hungarian, it will be greeted with less enthusiasm, and so probably a slower response time. The police are VERY busy, so my advice is to make it as easy as possible for them. 

Next up, the National Coordination Centre, the pulse of border control. 

This was a very secure room... 

I wasn't sure how welcome an enquiring foreign journalist would be, or how much access I would get, or what photos I would be allowed to take and publish. 

The answer was that there were some limits regarding photography - understandably - but everyone I encountered was extremely forthcoming with information and professional in its approach. Did I say that this ministry behind the scenes ran like clockwork? 

All the borders on one giant screen, so that resources could be reallocated as the need allowed. There was also a customs officer working in the control room, so that all border issues were addressed efficiently and immediately.  

And the police were keeping on top of migrant movements on the eastern borders.  

Really impressive stuff, all explained with warmth and humour. My question about when Croatia would join Schengen drew a wry smile or two, and we had a good exchange over the policing of Liberland.  

Next it was off in the Macan Porsche to Bregana, the main border crossing between Croatia and Slovenia, where the border police could not have been more helpful. After explaining our mission, they again gave us more access than I was expecting. 

It seems that the system with the online form is working well. Between May 28 and June 4, 56,000 people entered Croatia using the form, from a total of 25,799 applications. One thing that surprised me a lot was the number of transit passengers. About half the foreign visitors entering Croatia are in transit to Serbia, Bosnia, Greece and Turkey etc. 

Yes there were some people who were refused entry, an average of 2-3 a day at Bregana (this border currently handles between 5 - 8,000 people a day). This is true in and out of the season, but the message was clear - if you have your documentation in order and have filled in the entercroatia.mup.hr form, you will have no problems entering.  

I asked a few of the tourists coming into the country, and I was surprised at the amount who had filled in the form - they all showed me the police confirmation print out, which they had showed at all transit borders on the drive from their homeland. The system seemed to be working superbly.  

What a day! Certainly one of the most interesting mornings in my 18 years in Croatia. 

My thanks to all the team at the Interior Ministry and the border control and border police. A supremely efficient operation. 

And you STILL have time to answer all those tourist emails...

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

Read the Croatian Travel Update in your language - now available in 24 languages

Join the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community.

ZAGREB, June 9, 2020 - The Central State Office for Croats Abroad has granted a total of HRK 2.5 million for 153 projects by non-profit organisations of Croats abroad after receiving as many as 585 applications, the office said on Tuesday. 

Grants ranged from HRK 5,000 to HRK 60,000 and one applicant could have submitted two project proposals at the most.

None of the projects was granted the maximum amount of HRK 80,000. The single largest amount, of HRK 60,000, was granted to the Croatian National Council from Subotica, Serbia.

The Croatian self-governing authority in Budapest, Hungary and the Alliance of Croatian Associations in Lendava, Slovenia each received HRK 42,000 for their projects.

Four projects received HRK 38,000 each. These were submitted by the Croatian National Council in Tivat, Montenegro, the Croatian Printing Society from Eisenstadt, Austria and two associations from Subotica in Serbia.

Nine other projects received HRK 30,000 each, including a pilot project providing legal assistance by the Orahova humanitarian cultural association from Kotor Varos in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The only organisation to receive grants for two projects was the Croatian World Congress from Zagreb, receiving a total of HRK 45,000.

These grants are issued every year for Croatian associations and individuals outside Croatia. Croats living outside Croatia who are poor, ill or vulnerable members of the community can also be recommended for assistance.

This year 24 people were granted assistance ranging from HRK 2,000 to HRK 6,000, mostly from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

(€1 = HRK 7.569360)

As tportal writes on the 9th of June, 2020, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has agreed with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz that Austria would lift restrictions on free movement between Croatia and Austria.

Although Austrians were the most frequent visitors to Croatia last week after Slovenes, Austria hasn't yet officially approved travel to Croatia, nor has the country lifted restrictions on Croatian citizens crossing the border, as they did with their neighbouring countries with the exception of Italy.

Prime Minister Plenkovic announced that this would change soon.

He announced on his Twitter profile that he had talked with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz about preparations for the next European Council meeting and the situation with the coronavirus epidemic. They agreed that the government in Vienna would make a decision tomorrow on lifting restrictions on the movement of people between Croatia and Austria from mid-June onwards.

''Croatia is open to Austrian tourists, they know it and they're coming,'' Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Friday.

''At the moment, behind the Slovenes, the Austrians are our most frequent visitors. Croatia is open in that sense, the Austrians know that and they're coming,'' said Božinovic after the video conference of the European interior ministers.

"I think that Croatia is so recognised, so attractive and known by our neighbours and EU member states that I don't see what will prevent them from coming to Croatia," Bozinovic said, adding that Zagreb was now engaging in bilateral talks with Vienna.

He reported that a video conference showed that there was political will within the EU at the ministerial level to open internal borders around June the 15th, but that epidemiological situations still had to be monitored because the pandemic isn't at the same stage in all countries.

As for the EU's external borders, the Croatian minister pointed out that a coordinated approach would be applied in this regard 'given that coronavirus infection is very intense in various parts of the world,  but that a certain exception can always be made for those countries which have a favourable epidemiological situation, especially in the closer European neighbourhood.

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

Read the Croatian Travel Update in your language - now available in 24 languages

Join the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community.

For more on travel between Croatia and Austria, follow our travel page and our dedicated coronavirus section.

The main phenomenon of the Medvednica Nature Park is the Sljeme forest, but much more is coming to Medvedgrad, and a museological exhibition of biodiversity will be placed in the south tower.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 9th of June, 2020, back in November 2018, the most demanding and largest project for the reconstruction of Medvedgrad began. The Visitor Centre and other parts of its infrastructure are now slowly coming together and being properly arranged. The project is worth almost 30 million kuna, and more than 80 percent of that enormous figure came from European Union (EU) funds, writes HRT.

After several renovations in the past, Medvedgrad is getting a new look once again.

''Everything we found there, we tried to reconstruct in such a way that it remains in the same volume and in the same form, and everything we added we tried to make sure it appeared visibly added,'' explained designer Ivo Vranjican.

Elegant benches made of strong Slavonian oak, glass on the lookout so as not to spoil the view of the outlines of the nearby City of Zagreb, a multimedia hall and a theatre of light and shadow - these are the novelties that will come to be in beautiful Medvedgrad.

''We will also set up a certain multimedia exhibition, we will have space for certain conferences and workshops, and downstairs there is a catering facility that we hope to rent out to someone who can deal with that,'' noted Marina Popijac, the director of PP Medvednica (Medvednica Nature Park).

''Everything is quite technologically modern, so there will be some exhibits that will be performed in a way that are multimedia and active in their essence, so I think it will be very interesting for visitors,'' said Andrea Kostelic, the director of promotion, education and interpretation.

As previously touched on, the main phenomenon of the Medvednica Nature Park is the beautiful, rich Sljeme forest, and a museological exhibition of biodiversity will be placed in the south tower to give it even more of an extra edge.

The first visitors are expected at the end of the year.

Follow our lifestyle page for more. If it's just Zagreb and its surroundings you're interested in, check out Zagreb in a Page and Total Zagreb for all you need to know.

ZAGREB, June 8, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the priorities of the presidency over the Council of the European Union and the reactivation of the economy and tourist season, during their video conference on Monday, the Croatian government stated.

Croatia is the current chair of the Council of the EU, and in the second half of 2020, Germany assumes the chairmanship.

Plenkovic outlined Croatia's plans for the Conference on the Future of Europe.

The German chancellor congratulated Croatia and the premier on the country's successful first presidency, against a backdrop of the unforeseen events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the government says in its press release.

The virtual EU-Western Balkan Summit Meeting and the forthcoming EU-Eastern Partnership summit are gaining more prominence in such circumstances.

The two interlocutors also pointed to the satisfactory epidemiological developments in their respective countries, which will make it possible for their economies, including the tourist trade, to be reactivated along with gradual recovery of the air transport.

All that is supposed to lead to an increase of tourist arrivals this summer, which is seen as conducive to a faster economic recovery, read the government's press release.

June the 9th, 2020 - Popovac is a small village located under the only small hill in Baranja called Banovo brdo, nestled away in the north east of the country, between Osijek and the nearby Hungarian border. Popovac's small village school is not your average school, however...

Beautiful nature surrounds the area, the view of the green fields and dense forests is spectacular. It isn't something unusual to have the feeling that you need to protect nature when you see the beauty of Baranja.

Popovac is a place with one school, one shop, one post office but one big ecological soul. The Popovac primary school boasts the diamant status for participating in an International eco-schools programme. Our school made a note that the environment and eco-living is a very important part of school life where the students can learn new skills and ways to make the environment around them better and save the nature we're so lucky to have for the future.

Through many years of experience, the Popovac primary school made a lot of progress and included the local community in learning and becoming more aware of the basic environmental needs which can improve the lives of every single person living in the village of Popovac.

But, just what are eco-schools? International eco-schools is a programme designed to implement environmental education guidelines throughout educational institutions (primary and secondary schools, kindergartens and boarding schools, special needs schools and even colleges), and the National Coordinator of the Ecological School in the Republic of Croatia is the Lijepa naša Association.

The International eco-school programme was developed by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) in response to the 1992 UN Conference. The programmew was officially launched back in 1994 in several European countries, including Denmark, Germany, Greece and the United Kingdom. Today, eco-schools are conducted in more than 64 countries around the world, connecting as many as 49,000 schools.

At the beginning of every school year, all of us at school think about ecological ideas for most of the school's subjects that we can implement into the curriculum. Through all these years, we managed to develop a lot. From day-long school projects to monthly and year projects, the idea spread further, getting involved in projects on the scale of Erasmus+ projects. The Popovac primary school's praiseworthy project is called ''Kids against plastic pollution''.

The programme is designed to present our ecological ideas to partner schools in Norway, Turkey and Romania. At the meetings, we presented our eco-school in beautiful Baranja, and we're very proud of being the only one with the status of eco-school. Now, in the distance learning era, we continue to be active virtually. We're not physically at the school, but the students made a short video from home about plastic pollution which included their own ecological messages.

This experience of needing to stay at home and stay safe made the students realise what they have learned through their activities at school and what they can do at home too. They are now aware of the amount of plastic that their family uses and could talk about how to reduce that problem. On a monthly basis, students of the Popovac primary school are continuing to collect plastic bottle lids and are in the national project to help purchase expensive medicine.

Every school teacher can be proud of the results that the younger generations achieve thanks to the environmental education presented to them in their school classrooms. They are aware that young generations are sensitive to environmental issues and by being active in that field, they promote environmental concern as a value and as a of life.

For the next school year, new goals will be set and the importance of protecting our environment will be presented to yet another new generation of children who will be the bearers of responsibility for the school and the wider local community. Local government representatives are also included into our actions and are supporting the school's ideas which are pushed by proactive young people who are going to live eco-friendly lives and think of the
future, and not only of themselves.

Text by Marijana Kuna

For more, follow Total Eco Croatia.

As Marina Klepo/Novac writes on the 8th of June, 2020, although two months ago it indicated the possibility of Croatia postponing its entry into the ERM II exchange rate mechanism, Fitch now believes that the process of the country's entry into the Eurozone, a prerequisite to which Croatia had to agree in order to gain EU membership, will proceed as planned, despite the disruption caused by the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

In the latest report on the state of the Croatian economy, Fitch expresses its expectations that institutions will continue with the process of joining the exchange rate mechanism and the banking union. According to the rating agency, Croatia will formally request entry into the banking union and ERM II, a waiting room for entry into the Eurozone, in the third quarter of 2020's summer months, where it must spend at least two and a half years.

Nineteen reforms

As for Croatia, it has done its homework in full: the government reported a month ago that it had fulfilled the action plans of nineteen reform measures, and recently the CNB also reported that five banks have successfully passed the control tests carried out by the European Central Bank. According to Croatian leaders, the government will soon inform the competent European institutions about the implementation of all of the requested measures, and the ECB should inform the Eurozone member states about the results of the assessment of the quality of the assets of five Croatian banks.

Their positive response is expected by mid-July, after which the procedure requires the sending of a formal request to join the ERM II and the establishment of close cooperation between the CNB and the ECB. According to unofficial information, this process should be completed in the coming months.

When Croatia enters the ERM II, it primarily regards the determination of the exchange rate at which the domestic currency (kuna) will be replaced by the euro in the future, as well as the range of permissible fluctuations around the central parity.

The range of fluctuations should not exceed plus-minus fifteen percent. In the past two decades, the kuna has fluctuated plus or minus five percent around an average of 7.42 kuna per euro, so it is expected that the central exchange parity will be determined approximately around that market level. When it comes to joining the banking union, this means that the ECB will decide on the beginning of close cooperation with the Croatian central bank and over which banks it will conduct direct supervision. The remaining, less significant banks will be supervised by the CNB on behalf of the ECB.

Healthy banks

Given the long-term decent health of Croatian banks, the ECB's assessment that they are well-capitalised and that they can withstand a very strong negative economic shock is not particularly surprising. The assessment included Zagrebacka banka, PBZ, Erste bank, OTP and HPB, and consisted of asset quality control (AQR) and a stress test, ie, shock resistance testing in a scenario involving a recession, unfavourable interest rate movements and other risks.

Shock resistance testing has shown that even in the worst case scenario, the rate of regular capital would not fall below the prescribed minimums and regulatory requirements.

The Maastricht criteria

If Croatia successfully takes the first step on the road to Eurozone entry, a new question that will arise is how long it will remain in the exchange rate mechanism and when will the euro will really come into everyday use here. The experience of other countries shows that this period can vary from two and a half years, as was the case with neighbouring Slovenia, to 11 years, as experienced by Lithuania, which remained in the ''waiting room'' from 2004 to 2015.

In the case of Croatia, Fitch notes that the issue of deadlines for Eurozone entry remains open given its difficulties in meeting the Maastricht criteria, especially the one related to weak economic growth and the medium-term outlook for public debt. This year, Fitch estimates, public debt will reach 86.2 percent of GDP.

With economic recovery, it is believed that it will be possible to achieve the prescribed pace of public debt reduction, which is one twentieth of the difference between the actual amount of public debt and the limit of 60 percent of GDP, which means just over one percentage point per year.

However, the very prospect of joining the Eurozone is an important positive signal that also affects Croatia's credit rating. If everything goes according to plan, Fitch states in its report that in the time since entering the exchange rate mechanism and switching to the euro, it intends to increase Croatia's long-term rating by two notches.

For more, follow our lifestyle page.

June 9, 2020 - Former Croatia national team goalkeeper, World Cup finalist and Monaco member Danijel Subasic is saying goodbye to the club and city he has called home since 2012. 

Gol.hr reports that Danijel Subasic is counting down his final days in Monaco, the club where he first arrived in January 2012.

Monaco announced on Monday that Danijel Subasic would leave its ranks on June 30, while his current contract is valid.

It is not yet known where the former Croatia national team player will continue his career, but it seems likely that he will not stop playing football. Subasic will celebrate his 36th birthday in October and can certainly defend at a high level for a few more years.

After Monaco's announcement, Subasic confined the news and said goodbye to his soon-to-be former club with an emotional post on Instagram.

"Thank you so much for making your dreams come true, I will always be one of you. After almost 300 games played, it's time to say goodbye and thank you for all the support of the fans and all the club employees who have been with me since day one. Time passes, love remains. Daghe Munegu (Naprijed Monaco nap.a.). Hvalaaaa," wrote the legendary Suba.

View this post on Instagram

Merci beaucoup @asmonaco pour tous mes rêves qui se réalisent??❤️? Je serai toujours l'un de vous? Depuis janvier 2012 Ligue 2 Champion Ligue 2 Ligue 1 Champion Ligue 1 Quart de finale Champions Ligue et Demi finale Champions Ligue ?⚽️ Presque de 300 matchs joués, il est temps de dire au revoir et merci pour tout le soutien des supporter et de tous les employés du club qui sont là pour moi depuis le premier jour?❤️? Le temps passe L’amour reste Daghe Munegu???Merceeee?

A post shared by Danijel Subasic (@danijel.subasic) on Jun 8, 2020 at 5:33am PDT

Subasic spent eight and a half years of his career in Monaco, five in his hometown of Zadar, and three and a half with Hajduk. Subasic came to Monaco from Poljud and quickly became a legend of the club, becoming the second goalkeeper in the history of the club regarding the number of appearances.

When Subasic signed the contract, Monaco was in the second league and then began their rise to the top. It all culminated in 2017, when they won the French title ahead of the favored PSG and played in the semifinals of the Champions League, where they were barely knocked out by Juventus.

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