ZAGREB, 30 June, 2021 - In the past 24 hours, 136 coronavirus cases and one death have been registered in Croatia, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Wednesday.

There are 496 active cases, including 159 hospitalised patients, 12 of whom are on ventilators, while 3,475 persons are self-isolating.

Croatia has registered 359,872 coronavirus cases to date, including 8,206 deaths and 351,170 recoveries, 57 of which in the past 24 hours.

To date, 2,148,554 persons have been tested for the virus, including 4,954 in the past 24 hours, and 2,573,481 vaccines have been administered, with 1,488,707 persons having received one and 1,084,774 both doses.

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

ZAGREB, 30 June, 2021 - The situation at the Orljava clothing factory in Požega, whose workers have not received wages for three months, shows that PM Andrej Plenković is destroying state-owned companies while boasting that he is salvaging the economy, MP Sandra Benčić said in parliament on Wednesday. 

"The Prime Minister is boasting about salvaging the economy in the COVID-19 crisis while at the same time the state is destroying its own companies," Benčić, an MP of the Green-Left Bloc said, noting that the state's lack of interest in talks with protesting Orljava workers seemed to be an introduction in the company's bankruptcy to result in its partition.

Workers' Front MP Katarina Peović called for solidarity with Orljava workers.

"This is yet another case in which a company is being destroyed so that it could be sold," she said, stressing that Orljava was a state-owned company and wondering about the reason for the government's "irresponsible behaviour towards the company and its workers".

Croatian Sovereignists MP Željko Sačić stood up for Pula Faculty of Medicine Dean Krešimir Pavelić who was replaced on Tuesday after publicly stating his position on vaccination against COVID-19.

Sačić said he would request an explanation from the science and education minister and the competent institutions about why and under which circumstances Pavelić was replaced.

He noted that Pavelić's view was based on statistical and scientific data and that he expressed concern about side effects and harmful consequences of individual COVID-19 vaccines, adding that one should put a stop to "totalitarian and undemocratic treatment of different opinions."

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

June 30, 2021 - Little Croatia is a new park in Krakow dedicated to promoting Croatia! 

At the grand opening ceremony of Little Croatia on June 27, a park in Krakow that is entirely dedicated to the promotion of Croatia, the Split-Dalmatia County Tourist Board, which is the only tourist region that presented itself, took advantage of a special promotion of tourist opportunities and offers.

Namely, Polish guests in Croatia are always at the very top in terms of number, so the attractive opening of the 'Little Croatia' park in Krakow was an opportunity to remind them of the Central Dalmatia tourist offer.

At the promotional stand of the Croatian National Tourist Board and Split-Dalmatia County, in addition to the promotional material, special animators for children were hired who attracted them to the Split-Dalmatia County Tourist Board stand with games, drawings, and entertainment.

As the Sunday opening of Little Croatia in Krakow was a kind of family picnic with many children, the picture book Dalmatiner returned home, in Polish, printed by the County Tourist Board, in which the most attractive tourist places of Central Dalmatia were presented with drawings and stories. 

"The Polish market is especially important for our County because Poles prefer to choose our region for their vacation. Although these are mostly car guests, it is important that Split is well connected by air with a number of Polish cities, because more and more new guests from that country are choosing a plane to arrive faster. According to all information from business partners, current bookings from Poland are very close to the 2019 figures. It is up to us to do everything to turn excellent reservations into arrivals, and the main prerequisite for that is a good epidemiological situation that we must preserve," said Joško Stella, director of the Split-Dalmatia County Tourist Board.

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

ZAGREB, 30 June, 2021 - The Office of Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomašević said on Wednesday that a preliminary investigation by members of the Office of the Chief State Prosecutor and the Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) started at the city administration offices at 6 am on Wednesday.

Tomašević said in a brief press release that the new city administration fully supported the independence of state institutions and would continue advocating the transparency of work of the city administration, all city departments, companies, institutions and the related businesses.

Media say HRT director arrested

Several people were arrested on Wednesday morning on the suspicion of corruption, including, according to media reports, the director-general of the HRT public broadcaster, Kazimir Bačić.

USKOK and police have not confirmed these reports, but media say that the suspicion of corruption refers mostly to transactions of the previous Zagreb city administration at the end of 2020 and in the first half of 2021.

Bačić was allegedly arrested over a suspicious contract he signed on behalf of HRT with the Tvornica Žarulja light bulb factory.

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

June the 30th, 2021 - A brand new Croatian educational inequality investigation network has been launched with the aim of seeing just what might be behind Croatia's relatively low share of educated people.

As Ivan Tominac/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, according to PISA data, differences in primary school student achievement are related to socioeconomic status, geographic region, and gender. Croatia has a low share of highly educated people (Croatia: 28.7%; EU-28: 39.9%, according to Eurostat) and a very low participation of adults who decide to continue their further education (Croatia: 3%; EU-28: 10.8%, according to Eurostat).

The reasons for this aren't always a lack of desire or motivation, they're sometimes institutional in nature, and the obstacles that arise lead to inequalities in access to education. With the aim of eliminating Croatian educational inequalities and enabling equal access to further learning, a new national network of experts, scientists and civil society organisations has been launched to investigate educational inequalities across Croatia, from kids of pre-school age to people in higher education.

This new Croatian educational network is called "Lifelong Learning Available to All" and is part of a wider project led by the Institute for the Development of Education, and co-financed by the European Union from the European Social Fund. The main aim of their activities is, of course, to make recommendations that will eliminate Croatian educational inequalities and slim down the band of inequality that young people often encounter during their education.

The purpose of the network is to research and solve the problem of social inequalities in regard to access to, attendance and completion of education in Croatia, ie to provide equal educational opportunities to members of socially excluded social groups.

“So far, there has been no network or coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) linking levels of education from pre-school to higher education, including adult education. In addition, so far there has been no structured initiative between CSOs, the scientific community and public administration to address these alarming Croatian educational inequalities.

Currently, CSOs in the field lack the capacity for quality and coordinated action in the field of education: knowledge (on other parts of the education system; on the causes of educational inequalities); skills (for conducting research; for public advocacy); and networking with other stakeholders. By strengthening these capacities and taking a more coordinated action, CSOs can play an important role in the process of publicly pointing out the problems of Croatian educational inequalities and in proposing recommendations for public policies,'' said Mia Lakatos, the TEMCO project manager from the Institute for Educational Development.

The project will advocate, and at the national level, the realisation of equal opportunities at all levels of education (preschool and early primary, secondary, higher, adult education) for members of various marginalised groups (persons of lower socio-economic status, persons with disabilities, refugees, asylum seekers, Roma people, people from rural areas, etc.).

The network consists of a team of 25 experts from 10 organisations, and their goal is to work on the networking and capacity building of at least 12 associations and 3 other institutions in order to work more effectively on policy advocacy across the entire vertical of the education system. Furthermore, scientific research will be conducted in cooperation with the scientific community and associations on the dimensions of educational inequalities at the level of early and preschool education, primary, secondary and higher education, as well as adult education.

Finally, it is equally important to mention that they plan to hold 6 structured dialogues with decision makers (at both a national and local level), educational institutions and users of the education system to identify societal needs, discuss research results and advocate for education policy recommendations.

For more, follow our lifestyle section.

June the 30th, 2021 - Ivana Pavic Simetin of the Croatian Institute of Public Health recently discussed the Croatian vaccination rollout, and even touched on the vaccination of children.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Deputy Head of the Croatian Institute of Public Health, Ivana Pavic Simetin, was a recent guest of N1 Studio live. She discussed the vaccination of people in Zagreb who hadn't been previously invited for the vaccine, and that other counties had already started carrying out the rollout in this way.

She stated that there are young doctors vaccinating people.

''We're vaccinating our citizens who haven't had the opportunity to be vaccinated so far, we're vaccinating them without them needing to provide any prior notice, without being invited, they just need to come and bring their health cards so that we can enter all the data for the digital certificate. It's going very well," Ivana Pavic Simetin said.

"So far, the vast majority of people who have a great will and motivation have been vaccinated, either because of illness or because of travel. There are a large number of citizens, 30 or 40 percent of them, who have nothing against vaccination, they even have a positive attitude towards it, but they lack motivation. They think that it isn't convenient today, so tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and a month or two will pass. To reach such groups, we must come to them.

A good example are the covid buses that travel through rural areas and vaccinate people,'' she explained, also appealing to people waiting for autumn to be vaccinated, saying that then, if the fourth wave comes, it will be too late because they won't be protected. As for vaccinating children, she says that it is currently recommended that children aged 12 and older be vaccinated if they themselves have a chronic illness or if they have someone in the household who is at risk.

"If someone has a desire for their child to be vaccinated, and they don't fall into these two categories, they can exercise the right to that, but for now there is no organised vaccination of children. First, because they've broken up from school and it would be difficult to gather them together, and in children there are either no symptoms or they are very mild and there is much more experience in vaccinating adults in the world than there is in children.

By the beginning of the next academic year, we'll prepare everything, study the literature and if there is something more organised to come, it will happen in autumn. If there are indicators that all children should be vaccinated, it will be carried out in schools, with whole classes, as it is typically done with every other vaccine,'' she explained.

"It is not good for public figures to send out messages about not getting vaccinated.''

She also spoke about Croatian footballer Ivan Perisic, who according to the latest information didn't get vaccinated, and is now positive for COVID-19.

''It isn't good for anyone to send out messages about not being vaccinated, especially public figures. Djani Stipanicev contacted us because he's a supporter of vaccination, and musicians also do the same see how many people will be able to come to their concerts with their digital confirmation documents. We already had several well-known names who have supported us in the vaccination process, for example Goran Ivanisevic was vaccinated in our country, Zvonimir Boban was also there.

We're in constant contact with sports federations, we have special agreements with them, they need to be tested a lot because of all the competitions, so they know that they can contact us and we'll arrange vaccinations for them the same day or the day after. All public health institutes have put vaccination in the first place. It isn't difficult at all to get vaccinated,'' she concluded.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and choose your preferred language.

June the 30th, 2021 - A new Croatian tobacco producer's association has been formed with the aim to better the overall conditions of Croatian tobacco production.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the goal of establishing this association is to gather together the country's numerous tobacco producers in as many numbers as possible, because the association's iniators believe that better association will provide their members with better and safer conditions for tobacco production.

''We want a secure future for our investments and our work in production,'' stated Mihael Colak, the president of Tabacum, a new association of Croatian tobacco producers which, as he claimed, saw as many as 57 Croatian tobacco producers join, all of whom work to cultivate about 667 hectares of tobacco areas in the Podravina and Slavonia areas.

Noting that Tabacum will bring together producers who have a contract with the largest organiser of production and buyer of tobacco in the country - Hrvatski duhani, Colak said that the association is going to primarily be focused on more intensive dialogue with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, the Croatian Chamber of Agriculture and aim for a much more stable and better situation for them here on the Croatian market.

"Given that tobacco is one of the most profitable agricultural crops in all of Croatia, where the annual value of production exceeds 100 million kuna, we believe that in our efforts we will be supported by counties in which tobacco is primarily produced.

We're convinced that the further strengthening of production is in the interest of all Croatian tobacco producers,'' stated the president of the Tabacum association, which will work hard to promote continued investment in new technologies, which will reduce the need to hire additional labour, increase productivity and ensure survival of the nation's tobacco production.

For more, follow our dedicated business section.

June the 30th, 2021 - As many as 132,000 Croatian residents who work, pay their contributions and taxes, are considered to be poor. These alarming figures raise many questions which have plagued the Croatian labour system for a long time.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, every tenth Croatian resident with employment, so a total of 132,000 of them, received a salary of less than 3,800 kuna for their work during the month of April this year.

The average salary of all 1.3 million employees in legal entities in April amounted to 7,082 kuna, but more than 60 percent of people, or 792 thousand of them, earn far less than that. Every other employee, 660,000 of them, receives less than 5,956 kuna, which is the median salary, writes Slobodna Dalmacija.

Back in April 2021, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) published data on the structure of employees by salary for March last year. It publishes this type of data once a year, and according to the latest data, 5.9 percent of full-time employees, or 64,810 of them, earned less than 3,400 kuna, which is this year's minimum wage, and their share is probably similar this year.

It is expected that Croatian residents earning such a salary should somehow be able to juggle living, eating, and paying for utilities, and those who have a family have more expenses to consider. According to the 2019 Household Budget Survey, average consumption expenditures amounted to 93,522 kuna per household, or 7,793 kuna per month. Even the current average salary of 7,082 kuna can't cover this level of consumption, in which food is the most expensive item.

Food accounts for 26 percent of total household consumption, or 24,538 kuna, which is 2,044 kuna in monthly costs for food and soft drinks. Costs for electricity, water, waste collection, repairs and the maintenance of apartments stand at around 704 kuna per month on average, and 410 kuna is the average monthly cost for subscriptions for TV, internet and phones.

When the food, utilities and communication costs are settled, the salary of 3,158 kuna has already disappeared. If the salary is 4000 kuna, there is a mere 842 kuna left for everything else, including transport, fuel, clothes, shoes, medicines, apartment maintenance, recreation, travel, morning coffees...

In order for someone to be statistically at risk of poverty, they need to have lower incomes than those set as the at-risk-of-poverty threshold, and in Croatia there were 742,644 such people registered in 2019.

The last published data on the risk of poverty are from 2019, in which the risk threshold for singles was 2,710 kuna per month, and for households with two adults and two children, 5,691 kuna per month. The median salary in 2019 was 5569 kuna, and the current medial salary for April this year was still 5956 kuna.

The average workers' pension received by one million pensioners is currently 2,635 kuna. Because of such incomes, people have problems surviving: 1.44 million Croatian residents, or more than a third, live in households that find it very difficult to make ends meet at the end of each month.

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