Politics

ZAGREB, 27 July, 2021 - Eleven of 27 heads of city departments in Zagreb are no longer in their positions and acting heads will be appointed in their stead from among administration staff, Mayor Tomislav Tomašević announced on Tuesday, saying that this transition will last until the reorganisation of the city administration.  "It was important to us that some of them no longer hold those positions and that they do not have the authority to sign (contracts)," Tomašević told a press conference while speaking about moves by the new city administration in the last two months. The mayor said that some…

ZAGREB, 27 July, 2021 - Croatian President and Armed Forces Commander in Chief Zoran Milanović met on Tuesday with General Claudio Graziano, the Chairman of the European Union Military Committee, the President's Office said in a press release. Graziano thanked Milanović for the participation of the Croatian Armed Forces in EU-led missions and operations. They talked about the Strategic Compass document which is expected to give the EU clear security and defence guidelines in the coming period. The talks also focused on battle groups, operations and missions led by the EU, cooperation between the EU and NATO, and the development of the Union's defence and…

July 27, 2021 - Last week, the Croatian National Bank announced five motifs to be featured on Croatia euro coins, with the image of Nikola Tesla being the most popular one according to the vox populi. However, these are just the first steps of the process of creating Croatian euro coins. Who has the ultimate say on whether Tesla is to be kept or to be scrapped off? A look into the procedure of approving the designs of euro coins. The announcement of five motifs chosen to grace the national side of Croatian euro coins that came last Wednesday was…

ZAGREB, 27 July, 2021 - Finance Minister Zdravko Marić on Tuesday did not accept proposals for a lower VAT rate on beverages and to treat labour costs as a tax deduction, while a representative of restaurant and bar owners said they would have to fend for themselves the best way they can regarding future challenges. "My message to all restaurant and bar owners in the country, notably those who run bars, is that a very demanding period is ahead of us and that they will have to seek new loans and funding, despite the fact that we had yet another constructive meeting…

ZAGREB, 27 July, 2021 - The parliamentary opposition GLAS party said on Tuesday that a government proposal to restrict Sunday trading was "harmful populism and hypocrisy" by the ruling HDZ party, noting that the government had not thought about fair remuneration for Sunday work. "(Economy) Minister (Tomislav) Ćorić of the HDZ and Prime Minister Plenković himself have been insisting lately on banning Sunday trading so strongly that uninformed onlookers might conclude that their government has nothing better to do. And they have been doing so amidst a pandemic and crisis and after two disastrous earthquakes," the party said in a statement. It noted that…

July the 27th, 2021 - Transparency isn't something the Croatian authorities are all that used to. With corruption apparently being tackled with a wave of new mayors and local government units doing things differently, one continental Croatian town is going a step further. Meet transparent Samobor. As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes, in July, Samobor became the only city in all of Croatia to boast an automated display of all of the payments, invoices, contracts and purchase orders made by Samobor's administration in one place, thanks to the digital service iTransparency made by the Zagreb IT and consulting company Libusoft Cicom. This…

ZAGREB, 26 July 2021 - EU finance ministers on Monday confirmed the positive assessments of national recovery and resilience plans for another four member states, including Croatia, and initiated written procedure for their approval. Excellent news for four more member states – Croatia, Cyprus, Lithuania and Slovenia. We have confirmed the positive assessments of the national plans of these four countries, Slovenian Finance Minister Andrej Šircelj said after an informal meeting of the Finance and Economic Council. Since no decisions can be made at informal video meetings, written procedure was launched after the meeting to formally approve the national recovery and resilience plans…

ZAGREB, 26 July 2021 - The European Commission last week issued a report on the rule of law in Croatia expressing concern over a large number of the so-called SLAPP lawsuits against reporters and the media and voicing suspicion in the political independence of the media regulator: the Electronic Media Agency. "Croatia is updating its media legislation to transpose the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, with the revision of the Electronic Media Act to be adopted still in 2021. Concerns about the political independence of the Agency for Electronic Media persist," the Commission said in the report. Apart from concern regarding…

July the 24th, 2021 - Former President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic might well be being checked out for a top NATO position amid speculation that has become more serious of late. As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Politico portal, which is read worldwide, announced that for the very first time in the 72-year history of this international military organisatio, NATO, Jens Stoltenberg is looking for a successor, preferably from Eastern Europe. It has been noted that Croatia's former President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic has an ''impressive biography'', leading this particular story to firmly outgrow the realms of mere speculation and begin to be seriously discussed…

ZAGREB, 23 July 2021 - The construction of water supply and drainage infrastructure in the Jelsa-Vrboska-Basina-Stari Grad agglomeration on Hvar island, a project worth HRK 437 million (€58.2m), will be completed by the end of 2023, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said during a visit to this southern Adriatic island on Friday. The project, co-financed by the European Union, includes the construction of a drainage system and two waste-water treatment facilities as well as the reconstruction of the water supply network. Plenković visited a construction site where the work began in February. The Mayor of Jelsa, Nikša Peronja, said that the agglomeration…