Politics

ZAGREB, April 21, 2020- A plane with 58 tonnes of medical equipment arrived on Tuesday in Zagreb from Shanghai, as part of a programme to procure protective equipment from China for Croatia's healthcare system during the COVID-19 epidemic. The largest part of the latest shipment is equipment procured from the Chinese state companies MEHECO and Sinopharm, the Croatian government said in a press release. The shipment also included a donation from the Split-based Deltron company and its Chinese partner – Gree Electric Appliances Inc. – for the hospital in Split and local health authorities in Split-Dalmatia County. Some more shipments…

ZAGREB, April 22, 2020 - Culture Minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek has said that a set of measures has been adopted in light of the current difficult situation in the media sector, and that media outlets and registered freelance reporters and artists were eligible for benefits offered by the employment service. "The Electronic Media Council has made decisions on payments from the fund, agreement has been reached with the Music Copyright Society (ZAMP) regarding certain omissions connected with copyright royalties, and we have been in talks with Transmitters and Communications Ltd. on making certain concessions to commercial media," the minister said…

ZAGREB, April 21, 2020 - This year's memorial ceremony for Croatian soldiers and civilians killed at Bleiburg, Austria in 1945 has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, organisers announced in a statement on Tuesday. The decision was made at a conference call by the Bleiburg Guard of Honour on Monday after the Austrian government restricted the right to public assembly and the governments of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina restricted travel abroad or transit through their respective countries. The statement said that an alternative programme to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Bleiburg tragedy would be announced in…

ZAGREB, April 21, 2020 - Karlovac County authorities on Tuesday presented the Nikola Tesla Experience Centre, which is being built by the Karlovac High School, on the occasion of World Creativity and Innovation Day. Damir Pintarić, director of the AB construction company in charge of the project, said that the centre has a gross area of 750 square metres. The contractor is currently building partition walls and will soon start installation works and work on the roof and facade. Pintarić said that in the current situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the company had to reduce the number of workers…

ZAGREB, April 21, 2020 - President Zoran Milanović visited the PPK Meat Industry factory in Karlovac to see how the food supply chain was functioning amid the coronavirus crisis, particularly the Pivac Group which together with PPK generates a turnover of about €500 million. Milanović told reporters that PPK seemed to be coping well with unexpected risks and that if a similar situation were to ever occur again some lessons have been taught. PPK CEO Igor Miljak said that they showed the president their daily routine in light of the coronavirus crisis, informing him of the lack of raw materials…

ZAGREB, April 21, 2020 - The 75th anniversary of a prisoner breakout from the Jasenovac concentration camp will be marked on Wednesday with senior state officials and representatives of ethnic minorities and antifascists attending a ceremony at the Jasenovac memorial centre. For the first time after 2014, an official commemoration of the event will be attended by the President of the Republic, the Speaker of Parliament and the Prime Minister, as well as by representatives of the Serb and Roma minorities, the Jewish community and the Alliance of Antifascist Fighters of Croatia (SABA). Among those to pay respects to the…

ZAGREB, April 21, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Monday that the government was making well-thought-out decisions in the context of the coronavirus epidemic and would also define measures to relaunch some of the economic activities in line with epidemiological standards. The measures to relaunch some economic activities will be defined at a government session on Thursday, Plenković said, declining to specify those measures. "Once the entire set is finalised, we will present it," he told reporters after a session of his HDZ party's presidency. He did not agree with assessments that Croatia was late in adopting measures…

ZAGREB, April 20, 2020 - Initiative For a Strong Civil Society on Monday called on the Croatian government to adopt measures to safeguard the work of civil society organisations in the wake of the coronavirus health crisis. In its letter to the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs, the Ministry of Labour and the Pension System, the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds and the National Foundation for Civil Society Development, the Initiative underscored that government representatives so far had not addressed the issues of civil society organisations' programmes and schedules. They reiterated that it was the civil society…

ZAGREB, April 20, 2020 - The film "The Diary of Diana B." will premiere on TV on April 22, commemorating the escape of the last group of internees from the WW2 Jasenovac camp, and a project "From Film to Museum", dedicated to Diana Budisavljević, a great humanitarian who helped save children during the war, is underway. The Hulahop production company said that the film would premiere on TV on the first channel of the Croatian Radio Television (HRT), on the occasion of the remembrance day for all victims and survivors of that Ustasha camp, and the same evening it will…

ZAGREB, April 20, 2020 - The initiative Zagreb Is Calling You and the NGOs Green Action and the Right to the City are organising a new, third, balcony protest against the Zagreb mayor to take place on Friday, April 24 under the slogan "Bandić, give the money back". The organisers are calling on citizens to bang their pots in order to show their dissatisfaction with the mayor's "wasteful use of city money on murky and unnecessary, often overpaid projects". Each day, the chaos surrounding the repair of the damage caused by the earthquake becomes more evident, as well as the…