Politics

ZAGREB, February 2, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said at the end of the Friends of Cohesion summit in Portugal on Saturday that the participants reached a unanimous conclusion that all EU members - net recipients of the European funds were in favour of preservation of adequate funds for the cohesion policy. All the countries that are net recipients of European funds want that the final agreement on the future seven-year budget of the European Union retains adequate funds for the cohesion policy, Plenković told reporters in Portugal. The rationale behind that is that countries lagging behind the most…

ZAGREB, February 1, 2020 - At the summit in Beja on Saturday, the leaders of the Friends of Cohesion group will define their positions on cohesion policy that is important for all, and especially for those European regions that are yet to catch up with those most developed, the Croatian and Portuguese prime ministers said in this Portuguese city. "Our task today is to define our positions ... on the so-called traditional policies, and those are, first of all, cohesion policy as well as agricultural policy," Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said at a joint press conference with his Portuguese…

Did Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić and his wife Vesna go through a marital rough patch 24 years ago? According to court records, the couple filed for divorce in March 1996. Apparently, their short-lived divorce was amicable, because then ex-husband Milan immediately approved his ex-wife’s request to purchase an apartment for a price seven times below its market value! UPDATE: All about Milan Bandic protest "Enough", which took place Saturday February 1, 2020 here. Recently Vesna Bandić, wife of the multiple USKOK (Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime) indictee, bought a 68m2 apartment right in the center of…

ZAGREB, February 1, 2020 - Croatia regrets the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union (Brexit), but the Union remains strong even without it, the Croatian government said in a statement on Friday, the last day of the UK's EU membership. While regretting the departure of one member state from our European family, "we are heartened by the reinforced unity that the 27 of us have demonstrated in the past three years," the statement said. "The European Union will be smaller in numbers, but remains strong and unified as ever," it added. Croatia, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency,…

ZAGREB, January 31, 2020 - Dealing with the issue of demography, namely the fact that every year Croatia loses a city the size of Makarska, is of the utmost importance for the country's survival and future, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said while opening the seventh meeting of the national council for demographic revitalisation on Friday. Presenting measures designed to boost population growth that had been launched during his government's term, Plenković said that at the beginning of its term the government had recognised the problem of negative demographic trends that had existed for the last 70 years. He warned about…

ZAGREB, January 31, 2020 - The Court of Justice of the European Union announced on Friday that it had no jurisdiction to rule on a Slovenian case against Croatia over alleged infringements of European law resulting from Croatia's failure to implement a border arbitration ruling, the Luxembourg-based court stated today. The decision on non-jurisdiction means that Croatia's arguments are accepted and further proceedings cease automatically. Rulings handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union are final and non-appealable. Slovenia brought the action against Croatia under Article 259 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,…

ZAGREB, January 31, 2020 - The 151-seat Croatian parliament on Friday voted for the appointment of Vili Beroš as the new health minister, with 81 votes in favour, 42 against and one abstention. Upon the voting, the newly appointed minister took oath. In January 2018 Beroš was appointed an assistant to then Health Minister Milan Kujundžić, who was dismissed a few days ago. Before taking office, Beros was the head of the Endocranial and Pediatric Surgery Department of Zagreb's Sisters of Charity Hospital, where he started working in 1998. Since 2012 he has been an associate professor at the Zagreb…

ZAGREB, January 31, 2020 - The Constitutional Court on Thursday suspended the 2019 waste management regulation, until a final decision on constitutionality is established, and therefore waste management prices will remain unchanged for the time being. "Even though this decision on temporary suspension does not pre-empt a final decision, we consider that this refers to a very important issue which requires special attention and a detailed debate particularly in light of the possibility of a threat to one of the fundamental values of constitutional order and that is to protect nature and environment and the constitutional right to a healthy…

ZAGREB, January 31, 2020 - Women are still unequally represented in the European audiovisual and media sectors, which makes the public promotion of gender equality and diversity extremely important, it was concluded at a European meeting on gender equality in the audiovisual sector in Zagreb on Thursday. At the meeting, which took place in the Croatian Journalists Association (HND) offices, information mapping on gender equality in the AV sector was presented and conducted, and good practices identified so far were described. The results of a research project were also partially presented. The project lasted for two years and was conducted…

ZAGREB, January 31, 2020 - During a parliamentary debate on the report on the work of prisons in 2018 on Thursday, members of parliament warned about prison overcrowding and poor prison conditions as well as poor working conditions of judicial police. In the period covered by the report, 11,352 persons were imprisoned and the total prison capacity was 3,900 places. Of the total number of persons arrested in 2018, 4,119 were serving their terms, a drop of one percent from 2017, said the State Secretary at the Justice Ministry, Juro Martinović. The report also shows a significant increase in the…