News

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - Slovenian President Borut Pahor said in Rijeka on Tuesday that Slovenia and Croatia are friends, partners and allies, expressing confidence that solutions to outstanding issues will be found soon. Pahor was attending an event marking the 30th anniversary of the Union of Slovenian Associations in Croatia. Croatian President Zoran Milanović, too, was to have attended the event, however, he had to cancel his attendance due to other obligations in Zagreb. "Croatian President and my friend Zoran Milanović phoned me personally yesterday to explain the reasons why he would not be able to attend, and he asked…

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - Most MPs Nikola Grmoja and Zvonimir Troskot on Tuesday urged the Constitutional Court to state its opinion on the party's initiatives for a referendum to abolish mandatory COVID passes and transfer the powers of the national COVID response team to parliament. Speaking at a press conference, they called on Constitutional Court President Miroslav Šeparović to say whether he was under pressure from the ruling coalition and why the Constitutional Court had failed to state its opinion on the two referendum initiatives within the statutory deadline of one month. Grmoja demanded the urgent calling of the…

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - Several state institutions are involved in caring for Croatia's digitisation, while for any more significant progress and easier decision making it would be worthwhile for that to be just one body, AmCham director Andrea Doko Jelušić said on Tuesday at the "Digital Croatia 2030" conference. The conference is an annual event organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Croatia (AmCham) and attracts representatives of its member companies. Doko Jelušić said that according to the EU's Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), last year Croatia ranked 19th, and that the entire ICT industry accounts for 4% of GDP, which shows that there is…

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - The decline in new COVID-19 cases is continuing, with 440 registered in the last 24 hours, out of 4,138 tests, and three related deaths, the national coronavirus crisis management team said on Tuesday. There are 4,107 active cases, including 374 hospitalised patients, of whom 15 are on ventilators, while 2,121 persons are self-isolating. To date, Croatia has registered 1,128,239 coronavirus cases, 15,899 deaths, and 68.7% of the adult population has completed vaccination.

May 10, 2022 - Croatia is the 8th largest exporter of footballers in the world! Namely, 400 football players from Croatia play abroad in 135 professional leagues worldwide. According to those statistics, Croatia is the eighth largest exporter of footballers in the world, reports Slobodna Dalmacija.  One of the few Croatian industries that are very competitive globally is football. Even though there are less than 4 million inhabitants, hardly any adequate infrastructure, stadiums, or pitches, coaches in the younger categories are often underpaid, and laws do not adequately support investments in sports, Croatia is a real football miracle - especially when…

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - Constitutional Court president Miroslav Šeparović said on Tuesday that parliament had still not acted on the court's decision regarding a new abortion law and called for its adoption. The Constitutional Court found on 21 February 2017 that the law from 1978 regulating pregnancy termination is in line with the Constitution, he told N1 television. The court ordered parliament to adopt a new law within two years that would stipulate educational and preventive measures in order to make pregnancy termination an exception, because the valid law is obsolete and was passed in the previous political and social system,…

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - The European Commission on Tuesday endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of Croatia's payment request for €700 million in grants under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). "I have good news for Croatia: as soon as Member States give their green light, it will receive €700 million in grants under NextGenerationEU. Croatia has made swift progress in implementing the reforms and investments of its national recovery plan," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. Croatia, she added, "has taken important steps to strengthen the labour market and enhance social protection... adopted a national programme for the energy renovation of…

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - Only two of the five members in the council monitoring compliance with the code of conduct of state officials adopted by the government are independent experts so it seems that state officials will self-assess whether their conduct is ethical, the GONG civil society oganisation said on Tuesday. The other three members are two state officials in the executive authority and a civil servant from the ruling majority, GONG said, recalling that the code stipulates the principles of protecting the public interest and maintaining citizens' trust as well as the rules of exemplary conduct and rational use of public resources. The government adopted…

May the 10th, 2022 - Some people have been renouncing their Croatian citizenship, and we've had a far better look into precisely who has done that owing to the census taken back in 2021. As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, according to the latest census which was conducted last year by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the Republic of Croatia has a resident population of 3,888,529 million people. As for those who renounced Croatian citizenship in 2021, 154 people were released from citizenship, and four more people simply renounced their citizenship. In the first four months of this year, twice as…

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - Croatia should be admitted to the Schengen Area swiftly, during the French EU presidency, and any blockade would be shameful, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola has told Hina. Not one member state should block Croatia, she added. I will answer as a politician, I'm tired of talks with countries which have spent years trying to meet the criteria and when they do, there is no political decision. I think it would be shameful if that next step is not taken, she said about Croatia's Schengen entry. Metsola thinks it would be important if that took place during…