October 10, 2019 - Croatia is not known for its efficient bureaucracy, but let's celebrate the exceptions, such as MUP Varazdin.
My record with Croatian bureaucracy is poor, and I dread all contact with officialdom here, for more often than not you are sentenced to an afternoon of being sent from room to room, waiting for hours and then being told you are missing a piece of paper and to try again tomorrow. For years, my wife took pity on my 'I am a useless foreigner who can't speak the language' look and heroically became a buffer zone between the bureaucrats and I, taking all of the pain away from me.
But there are some things that even she cannot help me with.
Like Brexit.
Being British and living in Croatia, I get asked about Brexit on a daily basis, and I am embarrassed to say that I have nothing smart to say on the subject, as it really does not affect me much. I have not lived in the UK for 20 years and do not plan to again, and I consider myself a citizen of the world rather than any particular nationality. If Brexit does indeed happen, a quick trip to Dublin will secure Irish EU passports for me and the kids via my Irish parent should there be a need. So Brexit doesn't really affect me in any way.
Apart from one.
The driving licence.
Swapping my UK licence for a Croatian one has been on my list of chores for years now, but with the reality of Brexit, it would appear that having a UK licence was going to be a pain. And so I braced myself for one more visit to Croatian bureaucracy. I was not encouraged by the experiences of one friend in Zagreb, who needed no less than five visits to MUP and endless hours of waiting before she finally got her driving licence a few months later.
But I had an advantage - I was dealing with MUP Varazdin. Although we like to complain about bureaucracy on occasion at TCN, one should also remember the positives. And MUP Varazdin deserve gold stars and chocolate biscuits for their efficiency, even if it has caused me some frustrations in the past.
As I previously wrote, after living in Dalmatia for thirteen years, it was quite a shock moving to Varazdin and finding that my daughters could not graduate from their year at school until Croatian bureaucracy had reduced their number of fathers from three to one - you can learn about why you should never have too many names in Croatia and the curious case of Paul David Raym here.
MUP Varazdin not only managed to establish the legitimacy of this father in the eyes of my daughters' school, but they even succeeded where those chaps in Dalmatia failed, by finding a little more space on my ID card when I moved. And so, after a decade of living officially as Paul David Raym Bradbury in Dalmatia, Paul David Raymond became my official name once more.
And so to my Brexit driving issue. With 3 weeks to go until Boris takes us out of the EU or prefers to be found lifeless in a ditch, the clock was ticking and I headed in to MUP Varazdin. I was braced for the wait, the language issue, the lack of comprehension of my UK licence and a host of questions, mentally resigned already to returning the next day with some piece of paper I needed to bring with me. But this was MUP Varazdin.
I was in and out of the building in 18 minutes, UK licence exchanged for a temporary one valid for 30 days, while I wait for my permanent one to arrive in 2 weeks. Total price 173 kuna.
And in just 18 minutes, my Brexit to-do list was completed, and my faith in Croatian bureaucracy at least partially restored after 13 years of Dalmatian marendas and 'come back sutra.'
It is not every day that things work in Croatia, but when they do, it is worth celebrating.
