While most of us are counting down the days until we will no longer need to stamp every piece of paper in our offices, The New York Times takes a look at Croatia's love affair with HRH the Pecat. 

As Total Croatia News already reported,the stamp of approval will soon be history in Croatia, and if you've ever held an administrative position or owned a business in Croatia, you know just how important pecat (seal of approval) was for all your activities. On June 9, 2016, even The New York Times decided to take a closer look at Croatia's fascination with stamping, as we are one of the very few countries whose national seal even had a dedicated (and handsomely paid) guard until 2000, in their article n Croatia, You'll Finally No Longer Need the Stamp of Approval. Here's what they had to say:

Registering your new boat? Clah-thunk.

Change of address? Clah-thunk.

Invoice? Clah-thunk.

The pounding of official stamps has sounded out the rhythm of bureaucracy in Croatia for decades, well after many other European nations had stopped relying on paper and went digital. Practically any government or business document in the country has required some sort of official seal or endorsement.

All that stamping and paper-shuffling helped make life in Croatia a Kafkaesque morass, though, so the government has decided it’s time to stamp out the stamp before it suffocates an already weak economy.

Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic recently ordered official rubber stamps out of nearly every aspect of Croatian life. But the new rules will be phased in over the course of the year — and to put them into effect, some documents will probably have to be stamped.

It will surely take a while for the government and ordinary citizens alike to shed the deeply rooted clah-thunking habit. 

You can read the rest of the article HERE