Politics

ZAGREB, October 7, 2019 - President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović on Monday congratulated Croatian citizens on Independence Day, observed on October 8, saying that over the past 28 years many things had been achieved, "we have demonstrated that no goal is unreachable if we are committed to it." In her congratulations, the president said Independence Day honoured parliament’s historic decision on Croatia's final and irrevocable independence. Every Croatian patriot is proud and grateful to all known and unknown individuals who made sacrifices for this historic goal, she added. "Today, Croatia is a State that is known and respected... We know and sense…

ZAGREB, October 7, 2019 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković laid a wreath on the memorial plaque on the government building commemorating a Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) air raid on the building 28 years ago. Plenković said that the attack marked a turning point in the process of Croatia's gaining independence from Yugoslavia. "Fortunately, the state leadership survived the attack, which was followed by the key and definitive decision at a secret session of Parliament to sever all constitutional and legal ties with the structures of the former state," he said. "This day is also important in terms of respect for…

This week, the Croatian Government announced plans for potential changes to the holiday calendar as we currently know it, and Vukovar could be set to get its very own day. As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 7th of October, 2019, the subject of a potential new holiday would be Vukovar, Croatia's hero city. The draft law that would put things into motion for a state holiday in the name of Vukovar has now been finalised, and the city's residents have been waiting for it for a long time, N1 writes. Three years after the Croatian Government began toying with such…

ZAGREB, October 7, 2019 - President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović has asked her French counterpart Emanuel Macron to ensure a review of the decision to suspend the search for missing Croatian sea captain Dino Miškić and his crew who many believe could be alive ten days after their ship sank in the Atlantic. In a letter, Grabar-Kitarović asked Macron to use his authority to ensure a review of the decision to suspend the search as long as there is even a slim chance and hope that it might be successful, her office said on Sunday. The ship Bourbon Rhode, with a 14-member…

ZAGREB, October 6, 2019 - Presidential candidate Zoran Milanović visited the coastal city of Zadar on Saturday and said that MPs could soon no longer receive privileged pensions. The former prime minister said that unlike other presidential candidates, he would not make promises he could not keep. He recalled that the first two measures parliament adopted in 2012 at his government's proposal was to cancel private bailiffs and privileged pensions. "That's to protect the little man." He said the Constitutional Court quashed those measures three years later so that all those entitled to privileged pensions still received them, including all…

As Novac/Marina Klepo writes on the 5th of October, 2019, with the official announcement of her candidacy, President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović wanted to send out a symbolic message: That she's thinking of the Croats outside of Croatia as well. A conference entitled "Diaspora and Homeland", will be dedicated to them in a few days time, organised by the Centre for the Study of Croatian Emigration, established "with the aim of promoting and developing closer relations between Croats in the homeland and those abroad''. The final release of two strategies for Croatia's demographic revitalisation of emigration by two institutions, the Ministry of…

ZAGREB, October 5, 2019 - President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović has received the leaders of the unions of primary and secondary school teachers, Sanja Šprem and Branimir Mihalinec respectively, who informed her about the unions' demands and the course of negotiations with the government. The president said that ever since she took office, she had advocated that all pupils in Croatia have the same conditions for education, her office said in a press release on Saturday. The president said that the teachers who are fully committed to their work should be acknowledged, rewarded and asked for their opinions. "We must move away…

ZAGREB, October 5, 2019 - Miroslav Škoro, one of the three candidates to whom polls give the greatest chances of winning the forthcoming presidential election, tells Hina in an interview that he is not gathering together right-wing parties and groups but citizens craving for change. Speaking of his motives to run in the presidential race, he said that he is not anyone's project and that he wants to contribute to Croatia's development. Responding to the interviewer's remark that he likes to portray himself as a man of the people and against the establishment, he said he was not "cultivated in…

ZAGREB, October 5, 2019 - The United States has lifted visa requirements for Poles, President Trump announced on Friday, and now only four more EU countries, including Croatia, need visas for travel to the US. Trump announced on Friday that Poland has officially been admitted to the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP). Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Romania are the only remaining EU member states that do not enjoy the principle of reciprocity between the European Union and the United States and their citizens are at a disadvantage compared with citizens of other EU member states. Brussels has tried to speed…

ZAGREB, October 4, 2019 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Friday he expected the new European Commission, notably its Vice President Dubravka Šuica, to make progress that would help Croatia and other member states deal with demography issues. Šuica, the Croatian candidate for Commission Vice-President for Democracy and Demography, was given a positive assessment after a hearing in the European Parliament on Thursday during which she answered questions from members of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality. Speaking at a press conference, Plenković recalled…