January 14, 2022 - Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey is currently in Zagreb filming a Franjo Tudjman movie directed by Jakov Sedlar. 

The right-wing Hrvatski Tjednik is the only publication in Croatia to have the opportunity to talk to Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey, who arrived in Zagreb a few weeks ago to star in a film about the first Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, directed by Jakov Sedlar, Jutarnji List writes.

The article points out that Spacey arrived quietly. The controversial Hollywood movie star revealed that he has been working on the project about the first Croatian president for eight months, and very intensively for about three months.

"It's my usual work process. Tudjman was a fascinating person, definitely the most important person in the creation of your country," he said.

Spacey said that it did not take long for director Sedlar to persuade him to accept the Tudjman role. 

"We are friends, and I know he wouldn't try to do something bad to me. He spoke very honestly and with a lot of passion about Tudjman; he cared that I was playing his friend Franjo and we quickly agreed."

At the request of journalists, he tried to describe how he felt about Tudjman.

"Based on his available interviews and videos, it is clear that he was a very passionate man who believed in his ideas and in his Croatian people. I think he belongs to that old generation of politicians who were statesmen, not administrators, who thought that the people needed a leader to follow, and he did everything to make it so. He was happy, especially on the Freedom Train. I love his sincere passion that many politicians today lack."

At the end of the interview, Spacey said that he loves Croatia, especially Dubrovnik and Hvar, which he has visited before, and that he liked Zagreb. In the end, he said that Croats are a tough people and that he is sure that they will rebuild Zagreb after the earthquake.

In the interview, he did not want to talk about his problems back home in the US regarding the accusations against him for sexual abuse as he is convinced that the court will make a fair decision.

For more, check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

January 14, 2022 - Nikola Božić of restaurants Đurina Hiža and Reshetka is the first to produce Croatian wagyu beef, which will be served at two dinners in February. 

Plava Kamenica first spoke to the owner of Đurina Hiža and Reshetka, Nikola Božić, at the Zagreb Burger Festival in the autumn of 2020 about his pioneering project - breeding of the first herd of Croatian wagyu cattle. 

A year later, the Đurina Hiža restaurant in Varaždinske Toplice, one of Croatia's most respected meat addresses, will present its first dishes with the first Croatian wagyu at two dinners in February.

With Davorin Štetner and in cooperation with the Jastrebarsko veterinary station, Božić started breeding wagyu-holstein cattle in Žumberak Nature Park at 750 meters above sea level in Tihočaj. Until now, this crossbreed could only be heard about as a curiosity from Japan.

"This farm is the result of two of my desires, which I have been working on for years," Nikola Božić said to Plava Kamenica then. "I have been dissatisfied with the general quality of meat available in Croatia for a long time, and it became clear to me that sooner or later, I will have to start breeding to get the quality I want to work with," Božić said, adding that his other motive was smarter cattle breeding.

“I have been dealing with meat for years; I have visited many places in Croatia and, with some exceptions, but I think that the general level of breeding is very poor. When I saw the conditions in which cows live on some farms, I began to understand vegans," says Božić. He found out that there were wagyu and holstein hybrids in Croatia at the fair in Gudovac, and he found them in Međimurje.

Crossbreeding holstein cows and bulls that produce wagyu beef has been widespread in Japan and Australia for years. Wagyu beef is known for its almost perfect marbling, an intramuscular fat that is impossible to imitate, but cattle have a mild and timid nature. By crossbreeding with Holstein, they get characteristics to adapt more easily to breeding in European and American climates. Although it does not achieve the highest Japanese quality levels, wagyu from Western breeding is becoming increasingly popular due to its availability and delicious meat. Spaniards came the furthest with a marbling of 6/12 and the Americans with 9/12, which is phenomenal. 

Nikola Božić is one of the fiercest examples of the endurance of the Croatian restaurant industry. The pandemic seriously threatened the business of Đurina Hiža and street food brand Reshetka. Still, Božić was one of the first to launch nationwide delivery during the lockdown, which resulted in the new brand Deda ide po veti and new meat product lines such as Low & Slow. With the restaurant reopening, everything they risked and did during the pandemic began to return to Đurina Hiža, says Božić. 

The first dinner dedicated to Croatian wagyu beef, announced for February 18, is sold out; the second will be held on February 25 for a maximum of 25 guests. There will be wagyu burgers and steaks on the menu, and if you don’t get a place at this wagyu dinner, you can buy it and try to prepare it yourself!

Đurina Hiža
Varaždinska 70, Varaždinske Toplice

Friday, February 18 and Friday, February 25, 2022

19:00

The number of places is limited to 20 to 25

Reservations: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 098/9562435

For more, check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

January the 14th, 2022 - The exodus of Croats to countries like Ireland has been going on ever since the country joined the European Union (EU) back in July 2013, but while Croatia's demographic crisis has been going on far longer than the coronavirus crisis has, many people have returned home from Ireland. Lika pizza master Ante Svoren is just one of them, who has returned to Lika after four years on the emerald isle.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, after four years of living in Ireland, Ante Svoren, his wife and his children returned home to beautiful Lika three years ago. The family's reason for leaving, but also for returning, was not economic.

"We didn't go to Ireland or come home for financial reasons like most people do, we went to see something new, to learn something new, to gain some new knowledge," says Ante Svoren, the owner of the Sinac pizzeria.

Over in Ireland, Ante Svoren worked as a pizza master with a starting salary of €500 per week, given that Irish employers are extremely appreciative of their workers and make sure to show that where it means the most - in their pockets.

"In this country, people seem to believe that their boss is some sort of god, and the worker is a slave. The first time I went there, I went to work, finished work, and my manager shook my hand firmly and said thank you,'' recalled Ante Svoren. After proving his ability to work, his salary rose to a thousand euros per month and he became the co-owner of several pizzerias.

"It's a little different for them than it is here, when they see that you're trying hard, they give you an incentive to keep hold of you," Ante Svoren told HRT.

In Ireland, rent is the highest cost and luxuries such as alcohol or cigarettes also add up. Everything else is cheaper than in Croatia. The costs imposed on employers here, he says, are much too high.

"Too much is taken out of a person's salary for their healthcare, for their retirement, a guy will say I have a salary of eight or nine thousand kuna, I'll pay people into their bank accounts, and they end up with five thousand kuna. Over in Ireland, what you've earned, you almost get everything, so it's much better in that regard,'' added Ante Svoren.

Now, home in Lika, they have turned a new page business-wise and started an extremely successful catering and hospitality business on the property belonging to his wife's parents, right next to the Gacka spring and the mill, where they employ eight people and encourage local family farmers to buy local products from them.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

January the 14th, 2022 - Zagreb International Airport experienced some fairly promising recovery in 2021, when a then very favourable epidemiological picture and the advent of the vaccine allowed for a surprisingly good tourist season during the summer months. It has its fingers crossed that this year will see things make the likely slow but steady return to pre-pandemic normality.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Zagreb International Airport (MZLZ), the Franjo Tudjman Airport concessionaire, hopes for better business trends throughout 2022 than it experienced duing the last two years, especially after the remarkable increase in traffic in 2021, but this also depends on the global situation in air transport, which is still under strong impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Due to the rapid changes which take place owing to the situation with the pandemic, for the second half of January and partly for February 2022, certain flights were cancelled, but most have been placed back on sale again as of February. Zagreb International Airport is in contact with air carriers from around the world. However, due to the confidentiality of the data, we can't share more information so far,'' they said in answer to a question asked about business and expectations for 2022.

Noting that in the last month of 2021, Zagreb was connected to 51 destinations with regular traffic lines with 19 airlines. also had 15,000 more passengers than it did back in November.

They served just over 179.5 thousand passengers, 138 thousand more than back in December 2020, and the most successful month last year was unsurprisingly August with 194.9 thousand passengers, September with 191 thousand, and then October with 182.8 thousand people. The number of flights increased by about 8000 compared to 2020, to 29,605, as did cargo turnover when looked at annually, to 10,781 tonnes, compared to 9848 tonnes transported back in 2020.

"In 2021, Zagreb International Airport recorded a significant increase in passenger traffic, an increase in the number of destinations and in the number of airlines. The turnover of business aviation and charter flights was also higher, but it is still significantly below the results from the record-breaking pre-pandemic year of 2019,'' they stated from the airport.

All of Zgreb Airport's affiliated companies employ about 680 workers, they didn't lay anyone off during the pandemic, and at the beginning of this year they've been looking for new employees in ticket sales.

For more, check out our dedicated travel and business sections.

January the 14th, 2022 - There needs to be many more Croatian charging stations dotted around the country to meet EU standards, despite the fact that the purchase of electric cars in the bloc is still somewhat modest.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes, although the number of electric cars in some European Union countries has already reached an enviable level, the fact is that in most others it is modest, to say the very least. The main reason, with the still relatively high purchase price, is the insufficient charging infrastructure for such vehicles across the bloc.

There are around 600 Croatian charging stations located up and down the country, suitable for about 2,000 electric cars. It may seem to those not in the loop that this is enough, because, by comparison, for the 2.8 million registered Croatian petrol and diesel motor vehicles, we have 800 fuel stations.

However, e-mobility technology is somewhat different and requires longer and more frequent charging and as such a denser network of charging stations, which in turn entails the adjustment of a country's electricity network and overall capacities. This could soon be applied here in Croatia because, according to the Croatian National Association for e-Mobility Circuit, which is part of the European Association for Electromobility - AVERE, the new EU plan is for member states to create e-charging capacities at level the level of 10% of the total fleet, which means that within the domestic, framework we would theoretically need to have have tens of thousands of Croatian charging stations that could theoretically serve 280 thousand vehicles.

National goals

''For the last six months, we've been working hard on the new regulation for alternative fuel infrastructure (AFIR), which is a strategic document of the European Union that defines the use of alternative energy sources, namely electric vehicles. The difference between the previous directive and the new regulation is that this regulation is mandatory, and the directive serves solely as advice to member states. We're currently working on regulations that will oblige Croatia to adhere to these new rules. With the arrival of these regulations, we can expect an even greater number of super fast vehicle chargers, not only for personal transport, but also for truck traffic on the stretch from Varazdin to Rijeka and Zagreb to Ljubljana in Slovenia,'' explained Hrvoje Prpic, President of the Circuit.

He added that the new AFIR regulation significantly better defines the publicly available infrastructure for charging electric vehicles, and most importantly, the regulation seeks to ensure the simplest possible increase in the number of charging stations across the European Union. AVERE's proposal is for each country in the EU to install enough infrastructure for at least 10% of the total number of vehicles registered in the country, which in Croatia, for example, would be much more infrastructure than is currently needed for the existing number of electric vehicles.

Circuit believes that this is a great way to motivate future vehicle buyers to consider switching to zero-CO2 vehicles, because in that case they would come to empty Croatian charging stations and not worry about needing to find a place to charge their car, and on the other hand, these charging stations would be co-financed by the EU, so such expansion of such infrastructure would not cost the state all that much.

In addition to that, AFIR would set goals in order to significantly strengthen the infrastructure on the TEN-T corridor - a single trans-European road network that connects all major transport points in Europe.

This means that the number of charging stations for light and heavy electric vehicles would be further increased across Croatia and in its neighbouring countries. AFIR requires that at least one charging station for electric trucks or buses with two chargers up to 350 kW be available, and for light passenger vehicles, there must be at least one charging station with two chargers up to 150 kW on the TEN-T corridor by the year 2025.

By 2030, that number of fuel stations must be doubled. On all additional roads connected to the TEN-T corridor, EU member states must ensure a uniform network of fuel stations every 100 kilometres. According to AFIR, charging for vehicle charging should also be possible with the help of bank cards, so all charging station operators should install card readers at their future Croatian charging stations.

This would greatly facilitate the charging of the vehicles belonging to many electric vehicle drivers, especially for tourists who are unfamiliar with the charger network in the country they are visiting.

For more, check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

January the 14th, 2022 - Novska is having a complete and utter turnaround, becoming the Novska gaming campus which has just recently been put into function, as have new student dorms.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, it has been less than two years since Novska's former INA building was transferred to the portfolio of that city, which is rapidly positioning itself as the centre of the gaming industry in Croatia. The new building has been put into a new function by being transformed into new student dorms.

This has been a joint project of the City of Novska, Sisak-Moslavina County and the Croatian Government, which was officially opened this week by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who made sure to emphasise that this is just one project which is transforming Novska into the country's gaming centre as the industry of the future.

Two business incubators are playing host to more than 60 companies specialising in video games, while over 50 percent of the companies engaged in the gaming industry are registered in Novska where young people just keep on coming, which is the nucleus of development and new positioning of the city and the wider county.

In the specific case of the second student dormitory in this county, the education department has a prominent role, which verified a new subject for Novska's students - training to become technicians for video game development, resulting in the need to open the aforementioned student dormitory.

More than half of the students enrolled in this subject of study come from outside of the area, and 21 students will be the new tenants of the new building. According to Prefect Ivan Celjan, there is a recognition of the education and needs of today's students, but also the efforts of parents who are trying to achieve better conditions for their children. Owing to the deep understanding of the above, the student dorms will be fully funded, which means they'll be free of charge for end users.

The new dorms will house students from all over Croatia from Zagreb, Dugo Selo, Bjelovar, Kutinska Lipa, Stari Petrovo Selo, Kumrovec, Bektez, Koprivnica, Vodnjan and beyond, while the interest in the new field of study is unsurprisingly huge given the popularity of video games and the Novska gaming campus.

The Croatian Government has raised subsidies for entrepreneurs to the maximum (within the programme of the reconstruction and revitalisation of the local economy after a series of catastrophic earthquakes at the end of 2020) and this concept is being carried out in cooperation with the CES, being considered a magnet for young people who will come to Novska and hopefully decide to stay following their studies.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

ZAGREB, 13 Jan 2022 - Serb National Council (SNV) president Milorad Pupovac said on Thursday that the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube region on 15 January 1998 marked "the peaceful end of the war in Croatia" and helped restore inter-ethnic trust.

The peaceful reintegration was based on two peace agreements - the Erdut Agreement, adopted as part of a wider package with the Dayton Agreement, and a document adopted on this date in which the UN Security Council approved the mandate of the UN transitional administration for the peaceful reintegration of Eastern Slavonia and defined the status and rights of Serbs in Croatia and their institutions, Pupovac said in Vukovar.

He said that the peaceful reintegration had not only brought peace but had also helped restore inter-ethnic trust.

"The restoration of trust between the majority Croats and the minority Serbs was a prerequisite, then as it is now, for the democratization of the country, emergence from the war and ethnic conflict, and the return of displaced Croats and Serb refugees," Pupovac said, noting that these achievements were sometimes valued too little.

He said that the peaceful reintegration, the Erdut Agreement, and the Letter of Intent had also laid the ground for mutual recognition of and cooperation between Croatia and Serbia. "That is very important for Croatia and the Serb community and for the relationship between Croatia and Serbia."

Those who have in the past years been hoping for "a peacetime Storm", trying to deprive the Serbs of their right to use Cyrillic alphabet and expel them based on criminal prosecution for war crimes, are actually working against the peaceful reintegration and the commitments arising from that process, Pupovac said.

He noted that Croatia, unlike some other countries of the former Yugoslavia, had emerged from the war as a reintegrated country thanks in part to people who led the peaceful reintegration process on behalf of the Serb community, such as the former Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) leader Vojislav Stanimirović, for which he said he never received due recognition from some political circles, except President Tuđman.

Speaking of the anniversary of Croatia's international recognition, which is also marked on 15 January, Pupovac said that it was firmly connected with the issue of minority rights, especially the rights of the Serb minority.

He recalled that international recognition was preceded by the adoption of the constitutional act governing the rights of ethnic minorities, adding that all countries that had been advocating the international recognition of Croatia had demanded the adoption of an appropriate mechanism for the protection of minority rights.

The head of the Joint Council of Serb-majority municipalities (ZVO), Dejan Drakulić, said that the peaceful reintegration process was still ongoing because some issues of importance to the Serb community remained unresolved, citing autonomy in education and certain status issues. 

"Our task is to emphasize the importance of peaceful reintegration and the need to develop a more democratic and more tolerant society," Drakulić said.

The SNV and ZVO held a meeting in Vukovar to mark the anniversary of the peaceful reintegration of the Danube region and the international recognition of Croatia.

The peaceful reintegration process began on 15 January 1996 when the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1037, establishing a transitional administration for Eastern Slavonia. Retired US general Jacques Paul Klein was appointed transitional administrator. The process formally ended on 15 January 1998 with the UN handing over the administration of the region to Croatia.

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

ZAGREB, 13 Jan 2022 - The government on Thursday endorsed the reorganization of the Interior Ministry based on which the number of leadership positions in the General Police Directorate, police departments, and stations will be cut by 638 and the number of divisions by 115.

At today's meeting, the government amended a decree on the internal structure of the Interior Ministry in order to reorganize the police in a functional way.

Security challenges are increasingly complex and demanding due to new types of crime, which require the police to constantly adapt, Minister Davor Božinović said.

Murders and robberies down, organized crime up

According to preliminary indicators for 2021, murders were down by 16.7% on the year and all were solved, robberies were down by 10.2%, and grand theft by 13.6%, he said. On the other hand, organized crime was up by 11.6% and human trafficking by 37.1%.

He said 889 traffickers were arrested, almost 200 more than the year before, 69.5% more corruption crimes were reported, and 100 criminal complaints were filed for war crimes, 100% more than in 2020.

Speaking of drug seizures, Božinović mentioned 1.1 tonnes of marijuana, 745 kilos of cocaine, 257 kilos of heroin, and 367 kilos of synthetic drugs. He congratulated the Dubrovnik police on the seizure of more than 60 kilos of cocaine and 220 kilos of heroin.

"In order to keep and improve such results, we must be aware that only an adaptable system can deal with the challenges of the future, so our intention is for police organization to follow the real security needs of local communities."

More people at the operational level, less in administration

The reorganization focuses on increasing police operation at all levels, higher visibility in the streets, more people in operations, and less in administration, the minister said.

He said this was the first integral reorganization of the General Police Directorate before Croatia joined the Schengen Area.

An important part of the reorganization is increasing the efficacy of special and riot police in high-risk crises such as terror threats, hostage situations, and migration crises, Božinović said.

The minister said the reorganization did not mean that citizens would lose any of the services they had had until now and that there would be no new hiring, as a result of which HRK 1.6 million would be saved.

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