News

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - Western Balkan citizens have been participating in the Conference on the Future of Europe on Friday and Saturday, and European Commission Vice President Dubravka Šuica said on Saturday that neither Europe nor the Conference could be complete without them. The Executive Board of the Conference decided that during the Conference member states should work with Western Balkan countries, whose citizens could leave their proposals on a digital platform. Also, six Western Balkan countries were invited to participate in plenaries. This was done, Šuica told Hina, because "Europe is not complete without the Western Balkans." North Macedonia,…

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - Post-earthquake reconstruction in Banovina has not stopped even once, 29 family houses are being built and next week the contractors for ten blocks of flats will be known, the head of the task force dealing with the aftermath of the 2020 earthquake, Tomo Medved, said in Petrinja on Saturday. "At no moment has the reconstruction process been stopped or brought into question, despite all the circumstances cased by Russia's aggression on Ukraine," he told the press after a task force meeting which was attended for the first time by the new Construction Minister Ivan Paladina. Medved…

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - President Zoran Milanović is being updated about a probe into the crash of a drone in Zagreb, his office said on Saturday, adding that the blame is not only on NATO but the member states, too, although it is not the time to point fingers but draw a lesson so that it does not happen again. The president is in contact with the leaders of the Armed Forces and the security services and is being updated on the course of the investigation and new information concerning Thursday night's crash, his office said when asked if the president was familiar with the…

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - Colorectal cancer is first in Croatia in terms of cases diagnosed every year and only 20% to 30% of citizens respond to calls for screenings, it was said on Saturday at an event marking Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. "We have about 3,600 new cases annually and about 10% of people daily get this disease," said Krunoslav Capak, director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ). This is the most frequent cancer in Croatia at the moment and we should all fight against it together through prevention and a healthier lifestyle, he added. This year Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month…

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković will visit the NATO base near Madrid on Wednesday and meet with its commander in connection with aviation control, a government source told Hina on Saturday. Plenković is going to Madrid for a bilateral meeting with his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez, who visited Zagreb last October. The Spanish military base at Torrejón de Ardoz, 20 kilometres northeast of Madrid, is used by NATO to monitor the skies of its southern member states, including Croatia. Although the Combined Air Operations Centre Torrejón is tasked with identifying unknown flying objects, it did not report or…

March 12th, 2022 - There’s so much more to Istria beyond the famous Rovinj landscape or the olive oil and truffle fame. The region is full of treasures to discover, and we're happy to help you plan your visit with five unique ideas for things to do in Istria  And then go ahead and have those truffles anyway - we’d never think to suggest otherwise.   Walk the Parenzana trail  Not necessarily the whole thing, of course: running through three countries, the Parenzana trail is 123 kilometres long in total, and it's perfectly fine to only walk or cycle a part…

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - Croatian Public Health Institute director Krunoslav Capak said on Saturday that the possible relaxation of coronavirus restrictions, announced for next week, was still being carefully considered given a slight increase in new cases in recent days. "Since we have had a slight increase in infections, I cannot say if there will be a further relaxation of measures," Capak told reporters in Zagreb during a public health campaign marking Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Even though some media outlets have announced that the restrictions on hospitality establishments will be eased and that nightclubs will be allowed to stay open…

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - The European Union has demonstrated unity, speed and efficiency in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and will continue to adopt sanctions against Moscow, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in interviews with two France24 programmes on Friday. "The purpose of all three sanctions packages is to prevent Russia from carrying out this brutal aggression on Ukraine. The European Union once again demonstrated unity, our political position was quick, efficient and clear," Plenković told the Ici l'Europe programme, speaking in French. He spoke of the consequences of the Russian invasion, which has entered its third…

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - Croatia has recorded 1,575 new coronavirus cases and 13 COVID-related deaths in the last 24 hours, the national coronavirus response team reported on Saturday. The number of active cases currently stands at 10,115. Among them are 745 infected people who have been hospitalised and 53 of them of them are on ventilators, while 7,129 people are self-isolating. A total of 4,579,536 people have been tested for the SARS-CoV-2 virus to date, including 5,587 in the last 24 hours. Since 25 February 2020, when the first case was confirmed in Croatia, 1,072,430 people have been registered…

ZAGREB, 12 March 2022 - Nearly 13 million tourists stayed in commercial accommodation in Croatia in 2021 and generated 70 million bed nights, which are increases of 82.5% and 72.1% compared with 2020, while compared with record 2019 the number of tourist arrivals was down by 35% and that of bed nights by 23%, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. The number of domestic tourists in commercial accommodation increased by 47% from 2020 to 2.1 million and the number of bed nights rose by 36% to 7.4 million. Compared with 2019, the number of tourists fell by 3.5% while…