Politics

ZAGREB, 13 Feb 2022 - EU citizens attending the Conference on the Future of Europe on Sunday called for establishing a joint EU army, taking decisions on foreign policy issues by qualified majority, and adopting a common migration policy. A total of 184 citizens from all EU member states met in Maastricht on Friday and Saturday to formulate through smaller working groups, policy proposals on the topic "EU in the world and migration". They voted on the proposals on Sunday, with a majority vote of 70% being required for their adoption. Only six of 46 recommendations were not adopted. EU citizens…

ZAGREB, 14 Feb 2022 - The highest share of Croatian citizens think that the European Parliament's (EP) priority is to defend freedom of speech and freedom of movement, while most respondents in the European Union (EU) think that the EP's top priority should be to defend democracy, a Eurobarometer survey released last Tuesday shows. In Croatia, the highest number of respondents think that the EP's priority should be to defend freedom of speech (28%) and freedom of movement (28%), while 25% see the protection of human rights as a priority and 22% see democracy as a value the EP should primarily defend.…

ZAGREB, 13 Feb 2022 - There are 114 Croatian nationals in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said on Sunday, adding that for the time being, there was no reason to close the Croatian embassy in Kyiv. "There are 50 Croatians in Kyiv, 25 in the west and 25 in the east. There are also 14 Croatians in the OSCE Mission, so the number (of Croatians currently staying in Ukraine) we are certain of is 114," Grlić Radman told reporters in Split. Stressing that his information was not certain, Grlić Radman said that he believed "nobody has yet left Ukraine…

ZAGREB, 12 Feb 2022 - Croatia has advised its citizens to leave Ukraine, joining other countries that have done the same for fear of a Russian attack on the country. Croatians are also advised to avoid travel to Ukraine, particularly to areas along the border with Russia and Belarus and near the separation line with the temporarily occupied areas of the Crimea and Donbas, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs said in a statement on Saturday.  Those who cannot leave Ukraine are advised to exercise caution and contact the Croatian Embassy in Kyiv. The United States, the United Kingdom, the…

ZAGREB, 12 Feb 2022 - As people are continuing to emigrate from Bosnia and Herzegovina, including Catholic Croats, the country's authorities are showing no interest in addressing this problem, the new Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sarajevo, Tomo Vukšić, warned on Saturday. Speaking in an interview with Fena news agency, Vukšić cited data from the parishes according to which 424,000 Catholics had lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina immediately after the country's 1992-1995 war, and the country was left without as many as 100,000 Catholics in the 2003-2019 period alone. Before the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early March 2020, slightly…

ZAGREB, 12 Feb 2022 - Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Peđa Grbin said on Saturday that this incompetent government should be forced to do at least something to make people's lives easier in the present time of high inflation. Speaking at a press conference in the southern coastal city of Split, Grbin said that the government should have acted four months ago rather than announce only yesterday measures that he did not expect would improve people's lives. He acknowledged that the only thing the government had done then was cap fuel prices, which  increased again as soon as the prices were…

ZAGREB, 12 Feb 2022 - Supreme Court President Radovan Dobronić warned on Saturday that frequent amendment of laws, especially fundamental laws, was not good,. Speaking in an interview with Croatian Radio, Dobronić spoke about the announced legislative changes that are expected to improve the judiciary, warning that one should take into account the process of adjustment. "One can generally say that fundamental laws in Croatia are changed quite often, including the Courts Act and all procedural regulations - both the Enforcement Act and the laws on criminal and civil procedure," Dobronić said. System stability implies the stability of regulations, Dobrinić stressed,…

ZAGREB, 12 Feb 2022 - Croatia's population has shrunk by more than half a million since 2001 but the number of employees in local government units has swollen in the past 20 years, the Večernji List daily reported on Saturday. In municipalities, the number of local government employees has increased by 2.5 times, in cities it has increased by 50% while in counties it has doubled. "The number of local and regional government employees has increased from 10,692 to 19,047, that is, by as much as 78.4%. The same trend can be noticed as regards employment in the state and public sectors,…

February the 12th, 2022 - Could the Croatian minimum wage finally be forced into an increase under increasing pressure from the European Union in Brussels? Things might have to dramatically alter by June with yet another EU directive. As Poslovni Dnevnik/Ana Blaskovic writes, a new directive on an adequate minimum wage across the European Union could come out of Brussels' ''kitchen'' by June and force the Croatian minumum wage upwards. Although its pillar is the introduction of the institute of the minimum wage, which, unlike here in Croatia, is not yet available to all EU member states, the domestic labour…

ZAGREB, 11 Feb 2022 - Over the past fortnight 100 houses have been reconstructed per week, the task force dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake which hit the Banovina region in December 2020 said at a meeting in Petrinja on Friday. The value of the works contracted to date is HRK 280 million, HRK 457 million worth of works are at the procurement stage, and HRK 1.2 billion worth of reconstruction works will be contracted by June. To date, 1,428 houses have been reconstructed, said Gordan Hanžek, state secretary at the State Reconstruction and Housing Office. He added that homeowners have reconstructed…