ZAGREB, July 13, 2020 - In the first half of this year, the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party received HRK 560,000 in donations for its regular political activities, a report published on Monday shows.

The HDZ received more than about 30 other political parties combined. The bulk of donations, slightly over HRK 500,000, were made in money and HRK 57,000 in products or services. Not one donation exceeded HRK 30,000.

About 30 political parties have so far submitted their reports on donations and they are available on the Electoral Commission's website.

The report by the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), published on Monday, shows that the party received a modest HRK 13,750 from donors.

Reports published earlier show that the Croatian Conservative Party (HKS) of MEP Ruza Tomasic overtook the Croatian People's Party (HNS), to which donors had been very inclined in the past years. The HKS received HRK 164,000 in donations and the HNS 143,000.

Many political parties, including those in parliament, reported no donations, including the Independent Democratic Serb Party, the Croatian Pensioners Party, the Istrian Democratic Party and Let's Change Croatia. Independent MPs Vladimir Bilek, who represents the Czech and Slovak minorities, and Veljko Kajtazi (Roma minority) also reported receiving no donations.

The Social Democratic Party, Bridge, and the Homeland Movement are yet to submit their reports. The deadline is July 15.

Any party that fails to do so by the given deadline faces a fine of between HRK 10,000 and 100,000, while MPs and councillors face a fine of between HRK 2,000 and 20,000.

(€1 = HRK 7.53)

July 13, 2020 - According to the latest classification of foreign countries adopted by the Hungarian government, Croatia is included in the 'green' category, which means that Hungarian citizens vacationing in Croatia do not have to quarantine or present a coronavirus test upon return to their country.

Thiis news was confirmed by the director of the Croatian National Tourist Board Office in Hungary, Ivana Herceg, who emphasized that all countries are classified into three categories: red, yellow and green, reports Dalmatinski Portal.

"The Hungarian market is entering our top 10 markets and I believe that the news of Croatia's classification in the green category will further encourage our Hungarian guests to spend their holidays in our country. So far in July, Hungarians have made almost 30,000 arrivals and more than 150,000 overnight stays in Croatia, which is approximately 45 percent of the results achieved in the same period last year," said the director of the Croatian National Tourist Board, Kristjan Stanicic, noting that most Hungarians are currently in Vir, Crikvenica, Rovinj, Rab and Krk.

"At a recent meeting with the owner of the company Vir Sziget, which sells and rents real estate on the island of Vir, the great interest of Hungarian tourists in the island of Vir, but also in the whole of Croatia, was confirmed. If the current epidemiological situation remains unchanged, the Hungarian market is expected to retain an interest in traveling to Croatian destinations," said Ivana Herceg.

The visit of one of the most famous Hungarian YouTubers, Magyarosi Csaba, will certainly contribute to the greater arrival of Hungarian tourists in. Croatia. Csaba published a video about his stay titled, 'With a camper in Croatia: What is it like to travel abroad now?', which has been viewed more than 156,000 times so far, as well as two other videos on 'Life in a luxury camp' and 'What is tourism like now and how is returning home from Croatia?' which together achieved nearly 200,000 views.

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July 13, 2020 - The latest news from around Croatia’s airports for flights to Croatia with updates from Split Airport.

Croatian Aviation reports that the Irish national company Aer Lingus, which normally operates in the summer flight schedule to Dubrovnik, Split and Pula, has announced the launch of only one route to Croatia.

In the summer flight schedule, Aer Lingus mainly starts traffic to Croatia at the beginning of April, which was not possible this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. As the airline has announced, the Dublin - Pula line will not be in operation in July, but sales are open from mid-August, which still leaves the possibility of a complete cancellation of this line for this summer season.

It is the same with Dubrovnik - the company has been holding a line from Dublin since mid-August, as well as a new line from Cork, but the chances of starting traffic this summer season are relatively small.

The only line to Croatia that has been confirmed and should start operating soon is the Dublin - Split line, which should operate three times a week from July 20, every Monday, Wednesday and Sunday, on an A320 aircraft with a capacity of 174 passengers.

It only makes sense, as on Sunday, July 12, Split Airport recorded as many as 70 operations of commercial aircraft on domestic and international routes to this airport, as reported by Croatian Aviation.

Traffic to Split Airport was established by a number of companies, some a little earlier, back in June, but most carriers returned in early July. Of course, as it usually happens, the biggest traffic is recorded during the weekend, and this airport alone recorded over 70 landings and take-offs over the weekend.

During Sunday morning, several companies landed in Split: LOT from Katowice, easyJet from Basel and London, Scandinavian Airlines from Stockholm and Copenhagen, Croatia Airlines from Frankfurt, Lufthansa from Munich, KLM from Amsterdam, Luxair from Luxembourg and Eurowings and Transavia from Hamburg and Rotterdam.

On Sunday afternoon, British Airways, Condor, Smartwings, Austrian Airlines, Air Serbia, Transavia, Croatia Airlines, LOT, EasyJet, Windrose Airlines, Laudamotion and Lufthansa landed at the airport from numerous European destinations.

On Sunday evening, there were several more lines to Split from the following cities: Amsterdam (EasyJet and KLM), Paris (Transavia), Rome (Croatia Airlines), Dusseldorf and Cologne (Eurowings), Oslo (SAS), Zurich (Edelweiss) and London ( Wizz Air).

In total, Split had 35 lines to as many as 25 European destinations last week. Only a larger number of destinations can be expected every following week, especially until the end of August, when the peak of the season lasts.

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July 13, 2020 - TEDx Koprivnica Library was held in a new setting, but the feeling is the same: great speakers, creatives, and thinkers inspired the full house. 

Drava.info writes about the first edition of the TEDx Koprivnica Library held in ENTER, the creative industry incubator, which welcomed five remarkable speakers. 

Melita Pavlek is a local Koprivnica woman, who shared her advice on how to live a happier and simpler life if we just learned some lessons from our pets: how to live in a moment, how to pay more attention and catch non-verbal cues, how to be curious and how to rest and be active on your own terms. 

Kristina Čunović told the crowd about her project bringing together incarcerated parents with their children through reading. The parent participating gets to record a story that then gets delivered to their child, who gets to experience their parent reading a story to them. A simple idea, which helped strengthen family bonds in over 600 families in Croatia.

Paul Bradbury wants to inspire Croatian politicians and bureaucrats to change the country we live in, and he's certainly succeeded in inspiring the audience to change the way THEY see Croatia. In his 20 years in Croatia, he's gotten to know the best and the worst of our country, and he spoke about the fantastic lifestyle in Croatia: it's safe, it's in the EU, the infrastructure is good, the food and the wine are excellent. Foreigners don't understand why people would want to leave this country. He admitted that he fully appreciated how Croatia works only after hearing about the phenomenon of uhljeb. He presented the concept of Cromads, his solution for the development of Croatia, focusing on people who work from home, and want to move to a place that has the best lifestyle in Europe, and he thinks it's Croatia. He feels like that is the real opportunity for Croatian development and not tourism. 

Karla Čurin told her story of overcoming barriers to achieve her goals, as she's been struggling with the severe hearing loss her whole life. She found herself in the graphic design and application building, and she developed Oaza, a mobile app that helps people suffering from depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. 

The Boljar Brothers, Hrvoje and Domagoj, spoke about their brand MIRET, the eco-friendly sneakers. They're the pioneers in being eco-friendly in an industry which is among the leading producers of waste in the world today, as 23 billion sneakers get made each year, and most of what they're made of can't be recycled. They use recyclable materials to manufacture their sneakers, which don't damage the environment, and they look great too! 

What was feared, but discussed only very quietly, has become a grim reality this week. As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 13th of July, 2020 the number of newly infected people in 24 hours in Croatia has now exceeded 100, Krunoslav Capak sat down to explain the situation in more detail.

While for two days in a row we've been recording higher numbers of 140, measures are all out on the table and are being discussed, and depending on the situation, stricter measures may be introduced because the focus has become nightclubs, weddings and all sorts of family gatherings.

The director of the Croatian Institute for Public Health, Krunoslav Capak, explained to RTL just how the preparations for the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic are going

When asked who will control whether people wear masks, Krunoslav Capak stated that the National Civil Protection Headquarters remain against repressive anti-epidemic measures.

"We're against repressive measures because we think they're provoking revolt. We're for people's education on the matter and we think that is enough. We think they'll understand that they need to wear masks in places where there are more people,'' he stated in hope, adding:

"Control is possible, and there's a possibility that civil protection officers or the police will be obliged to do so."

Will there be a scene like the recent one when the police dealt with one person who was riding a train without a mask?

''If public order and peace are disturbed, then the police are called. In my opinion, this type of supervision shouldn't be carried out. We'll see how it goes. I think it's important to wear masks indoors where there is a high risk of spreading the infection,'' Krunoslav Capak replied.

He said that there are fines for the non-implementation of measures related to the protection of public health, and Krunoslav Capak pointed out that dealing punishments for not wearing masks will be the last resort because he thinks that education and appeals for compliance are much more important than repression is

"The WHO has been saying for several days that a much more complicated situation awaits us in autumn than the one we're experiencing now, and we're preparing for it. If it gets worse, it will be important that people wear masks in other places, so in a way, we can consider all this to be a preparation for autumn. The most important thing is that we educate people and that they get used to the fact that it's important to apply preventive measures, and I think that repression is much less important than that,'' he noted.

Quarantine, Capak points out, prevents the spread of the virus, but it is also unsustainable for a number of reasons - both in an economic and in a psychological sense.

"I don't think that we'll bring quarantine in again in autumn, but that we'll manage suppress the spread of coronavirus with segmental and rapid measures. The virus will remain among us, we'd like it to be smaller numbers than it is now and we're working intensively on that. Coronavirus is here, it is among us and it will not disappear,'' he stated.

One of the measures regards reporting gatherings of over 100 people...

"We'll explain this decision at a press conference tomorrow. We think that for those gatherings for which there is otherwise a vertical list, such as religious events, there should be no obligation to report it. This refers more to family gatherings in restaurants, hotels, fire houses, where our source of infection is at the moment. We've already prescribed measures for indoor pools, they're wide and high spaces where there is a lot of air, there is a limited number of visitors. I think it's less than a hundred people, but we can also revise it,'' said Krunoslav Capak.

When asked if he would respond to an invitation to a wedding with 300 guests, he said that he had already said that he wouldn't unless it was a member of his immediate family.

"Given how much the virus is present in the population now, the organisation of such weddings is very demanding and challenging. We've prescribed measures and strengthened them. If they're all adhered to, there will be no transmission of the infection. Such a wedding will go well. However, 300 people in one place is always a risk,'' he explained.

Seven days have passed since the election, and Capak says we don’t have any infections related to the election. He emphasised that it is necessary to wait fourteen days for the maximum incubation time to pass and then look at the situation.

"So far, we've not reported any cases,'' he said.

President Zoran Milanovic compared the coronavirus to tooth decay. Krunoslav Capak said that the Headquarters, as far as he knows, hasn't talked to him so far. He doesn't consider his statement a slap in the face to the Headquarters, but thinks that he wanted to say that it is an infection that can be compared to some other banal disease.

"I think the intention to alleviate panic and fear of infection is a bit exaggerated because tooth decay is something banal that is relatively easy to deal with, while this is one serious disease of which we have thirteen million sufferers and half a million deaths worldwide."

Krunoslav Capak said they had completed a serological survey in Croatia and would release the results perhaps as early as tomorrow, if not in the coming days.

“2.4 percent of the respondents, 1,054 of them, have developed antibodies that prove they have had an encounter with the new coronavirus. Which is a lot more than the number of recorded patients we have. This means that there are many more people among us who have encountered the infection than we know. Only a few of them have neutralising antibodies, meaning they're not protected from re-infection. We analysed it carefully. Only 2 percent of those who have IGG antibodies have neutralising antibodies, which means they're not protected from re-infection," Krunoslav Capak told RTL.

For more on coronavirus in Croatia, follow our dedicated section.

As Marina Klepo/Novac writes on the 11th of July, 2020, the announcement of income tax reduction pleasantly surprised many, because such moves by the Government are generally not expected immediately after the elections, but what is certain is that not everyone is happy about it, and Croatian municipalities are going to have much less to play with as a result.

Income tax revenues from 2018 have gone entirely to local budgets, and according to the Ministry of Finance, they amounted to 14.6 billion kuna last year. If Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic remains adamant in his decision to reduce the income tax rate from 36 percent to 30 percent and also from 24 percent to 20 percent from January the 1st next year, a rough calculation by tax experts shows that Croatian municipalities (local units) could be left without about two billion kuna.

Given the fact that the current structure of local self-government units across Croatia would find it incredibly difficult to bear the weight of the loss of that amount of revenue, the question arises as to whether the Government's announcement of a reduction in income tax rates implies the plotting of a slightly more ambitious plan is going on. This could be concluded, judging by the statements made during the election campaign, including that of the Minister of Administration and a member of the HDZ Central Committee, Ivan Malenica.

With the reduction in the number of ministries, Malenica said that "the number of local officials will be halved, everything will be done to make the public administration more efficient and effective". This includes coming forward with digitalisation to the level of Croatian municipalities and local governments and connecting all local bodies and institutions to central state registries. Such a move would naturally imply a great number of services, applications and platforms.

The dynamics of the Government's changes are yet to be seen, but it can be expected that with the reduction of income tax rates, it will go hand in hand with measures to solve the problem of loss of income of Croatian municipalities/local units. When they were left without a part of their income during the previous rounds of tax changes, the Minister of Finance, Zdravko Maric, found a way to compensate them from the central budget or to leave them other revenues, such as interest taxes. If a similar scenario happened this time, Danijel Nestic from the Institute of Economics believes that it wouldn't be good for the simple reason that it would mean increasing the dependence of local units on the central government itself, although Croatia already has a very high level of centralisation.

''Maybe now is the opportunity for us to reconsider our fiscal capacities and reduce the number of local units. Of course, this doesn't have to be done by a decree of the central Government, but the Government can set criteria to motivate municipalities to merge,'' said Nestic, emphasising that these criteria must be related to the ability to perform functions and services. In addition, it imposes the need to provide Croatian municipalities with greater independence and flexibility when collecting their own revenues.

Therefore, Nestic believes that the formerly wildly unpopular issue of introducing a real estate/property tax as the original income of local units should be reopened. Although this story has been ''current'' in some way or another for seven years, there were problems with the readiness of the system for its introduction, as well as an enormous level of resistance of part of the public.

In recent years, Minister Maric has largely avoided the topic of property tax, emphasising that "we all know very well how the last attempt went." The hated tax was supposed to be introduced on January the 1st, 2018, as part of the tax reform, and the law on local taxes passed through two parliamentary readings, which provided for the abolition of utility fees, monument rent and taxes on holiday homes, ie merging three levies into one.

For more, follow our lifestyle page.

When one thinks of Croatian tourism, they likely think of the coast, but as the limelight is finally being shone on continental Croatia, what about cruises along the country's inland rivers? As Novac writes on the 11th of July, 2020, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) River Tourism Association has demanded that "river cruising", ie passenger ships carrying more than forty passengers, be allowed to dock in Croatia's inland ports, which is currently prohibited.

Namely, due to the coronavirus pandemic, at the end of May this year, a Decision was passed on the necessary measure of banning the entry of passenger ships on international cruises to Croatian seaports and inland ports. This decision introduced a ban on the entry of passenger ships carrying more than forty passengers to Croatian inland ports and thus directly prevented the return of river cruise tourism, given that river cruisers have a capacity of up to 220 passengers.

"It isn't profitable for companies to operate with less than twenty percent of their usual capacity. I'd like to emphasise that the companies, in accordance with the measures adopted, have already made sure to secure five percent of their passenger capacity for accommodation in case one of their passengers becomes infected with coronavirus, and therefore I urge that the decision be changed as soon as possible,'' said Bozana Matos, president of the HGK River Tourism Association which sent a letter on behalf of the assotiation, ie a request to amend the Decision to the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure, the Ministry of Tourism and the Croatian Institute of Public Health.

Croatian tourism still focuses primarily on the sea, but the country is actually very well recognised as a river cruise destination. Last year, 61,000 passengers visited Eastern Slavonia and Baranja by river, and passenger ports on the Danube and Drava recorded 560 docks with continuous annual positive growth trends. In June, some river cruise programmes began, in compliance with all of the epidemiological recommendations of the time, organised by the German company Nicko Cruises, and announcements of the return of river cruises continue, organised by A-Rosa, European Waterways and Croisi Europe.

"Some of these cruise companies have cruise programmes in Croatia, and the current Decision doesn't allow them to dock in one of the passenger ports along the Danube and the Drava, so we need to urgently change the Decision, which wouldn't limit the number of passengers on river cruises," explained Matos, noting that this should be re-visited with a special emphasis placed on the context of the latest data on the decline in the number of foreign cruise ships in Croatian seaports.

According to the CBS, in the first five months of 2020, foreign cruise ships recorded a decrease in the number of voyages of 91.2 percent and the number of days spent on the Croatian Adriatic declined by 87.8 percent when compared to the same period back in 2019. The number of passengers on these ships recorded an enormous and concerning decrease of 98.5 percent when compared to the same period in 2019.

"Unfortunately, these are very bad numbers and Croatia will need a long time to recover from this situation, but at the same time, this is an opportunity to strengthen the river cruise sector, provided that the decision is changed in time," said Matos.

The recommendations introduced measures to protect passengers on vessels in order to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, such as daily temperature measurements, mandatory social distancing, wearing masks, special epidemiological measures during boarding and disembarking and so forth.

For more on Croatian tourism in the coronavirus era, follow our travel page.

Gaming in Croatia didn't take long to become a hit, and as Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 12th of July, 2020, the success of just one startup in the gaming industry could pay off in terms of what has been invested so far in the project of turning Novska into a regional centre for video game development.

As Vecernji list reports, the aforementioned industry is one that is worth an eye-watering amount of money and just one single hit game has the ability to bring in hundreds of millions of kuna, they say from the PISMO business incubator, which is the only one specialised in the gaming industry in not only Croatia but in the wider region.

Their next related project is the Campus Gaming Industry, and indeed, the gaming industry earned 120 billion US dollars globally last year, four percent more than it did back in 2018.

The most popular game last year was the ubiquitous ''Fortnite'', which grossed as much as 1.8 billion US dollars from sales made throughout the year 2019, more than any other game ever in one single year.

When compared to figures like that, the 420 million kuna that is planned to be invested in the future gaming industry campus in Novska doesn't even sound like much. The campus which will encourage all things gaming in Croatia and indeed beyond into the wider region should be located in the Novska Entrepreneurial Zone, on a plot covering more than 90,000 square metres in total.

There will be four basic facilities on the campus area. The first is a faculty covering approximately 9,000 square metres of gross area and dormitories for guest lecturers, which provides a five-year programme with fifty students per year in programming and graphics and around which cooperation has already been established with faculties from both Malaysia and New York.

A student dormitory covering an area of 11,500 square metres will be constructed, as will an accelerator for the gaming industry and an business incubator for eSport with a hall with a capacity of 4,000 seats.

The accelerator of the gaming industry will include a recording studio, meeting rooms and a hall with new gaming equipment, and it will be possible to educate high school students and everyone else who is interested in this industry, reports Vecernji list.

For more on gaming in Croatia, follow our business section.