ZAGREB, 22 December, 2021 - The Voice of Entrepreneurs association said on Wednesday the government's "I choose Croatia" scheme was illogical and discriminatory, adding that taxpayers' money will finance those who have not paid a single kuna into the state budget to start a business.
The association said that as part of its self-employment scheme, the government plans to give money to returnees from the EU and another HRK 50,000 if they move back to Croatia.
The government also aims to give money to those who plan to move their businesses from developed urban areas in Croatia to less urban ones. These people would get HRK 150,000 for self-employment and HRK 25,000 to move.
Voice of Entrepreneurs said the measures and the way the prime minister presented them "clearly tell everyone who, despite the state's treatment of them, decided to stay in Croatia and start a business here, who regularly paid their contributions and dealt with the complicated bureaucracy, that they did so in vain and that their dignity is evidently not equally valuable."
The association called out the government for "spending our money on bureaucracy... and numerous pointless and failed projects" in the past.
The proposed measures are illogical and discriminatory because they will be financed by those who make regular payments into the state budge while trying to build a business and a life in Croatia, in which the government's polices and laws have been setting them back for years, the association said.
It added that the measures were a failure also because it was not realistic to expect that one-off measures without a long-term plan, which would includes radical reforms, would encourage expats to return to Croatia.
