ZAGREB, 29 Oct 2021 - The Sabor on Friday adopted Prime Minister Andrej Plenković's annual report on the government's work with 76 votes in favour, 41 against and two abstentions, after he submitted the report on Wednesday, announcing an increase in the minimum wage and parental allowance.

As of 1 January the minimum wage will increase by a net amount of HRK 350 from HRK 3,400 to HRK 3,750 or a net amount of €500, Plenković said on Wednesday.

This is an increase of 10.3% for 51,000 workers.

Presenting the report, Plenković reiterated the importance of demography and announced that next year the government would increase parental allowance to HRK 7,500 for employed and self-employed parents as well as introducing a 10-day paternal leave for employed and self-employed fathers.

Plenković also presented optimistic economic indicators.

"Although we expected a growth of 5.2 percent, the successful tourist season and the 16.1% growth in the second quarter give us reason to believe that we could reach annual GDP growth of over eight percent," the PM said on Wednesday.

He said that despite the numerous problems and challenges his government was faced with and possible mistakes made, it was trying to steer the country in the direction of economic recovery and development and a better life for all citizens.

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ZAGREB, 20 April, 2021 - The Reporters without Borders (RSF) association has reported that the pandemic has led to a dramatic deterioration of media freedom worldwide, while its latest index shows that the situation has improved in Croatia.

Croatia ranks 56th out of 180 countries on the organisation’s annual Press Freedom Index, moving up three notches after ranking 59th in the previous report.

The organisation's latest report, released on Tuesday, reads that "Croatian journalists who investigate corruption, organised crime or war crimes are often subjected to harassment campaigns."

"Defamation is criminalised and insulting 'the Republic, its emblem, its national hymn or flag' is punishable by up to three years in prison. Worse still, 'humiliating' media content has been criminalised since 2013. Nonetheless, several courts ruled in favour of journalists during defamation trials in 2020. The government has not stopped meddling in the public TV broadcaster HRT, while HRT’s management continues to sue employees who have complained about this problem, and has gone so far as to bring a complaint against the Association of Croatian Journalists."

COVID-19 pandemic deepens financial crisis in media

"Meanwhile physical attacks, along with threats and cyber-violence, continue to be a major problem for journalists without any reaction from the authorities. The Covid-19 pandemic deepened the financial crisis in the media, leading many outlets to cut pay and stop using freelancers. The journalists’ union asked the government to intervene to help freelancers and some economic measures were taken in the summer of 2020 but not all media benefitted," reads the report's section about Croatia.

Deterioration worldwide 

The organisation warns that media freedoms have deteriorated considerably in Asia, in the Middle East and Europe, as shown by its index.

The index is based on a survey of Reporters Without Borders’ regional correspondents and takes into account issues such as the level of attacks on journalists, media independence, and transparency of government institutions.

The pandemic led to an increase in repression worldwide, according to RSF, which noted that media workers had been arrested for covering the outbreak in countries including China, Venezuela, Serbia and Kosovo.

Top 10 best countries for press freedom are as follows: Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Costa Rica, the Netherlands, Jamaica, New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland.

On the other hand, the top worst countries are Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan, China, Djibouti, Vietnam, Iran, Syria, Laos and Cuba.

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ZAGREB, 13 April, 2021 - The Serb National Council (SNV) presented its annual report on Tuesday, warning of cases of hate speech and violence targeting ethnic Serbs, including physical assaults, threats and property destruction, and expressing concern about a slow and inadequate reaction from the state authorities.

The SNV said that historical revisionism and views denying the legacy of the anti-fascist struggle during the Second World War were not rare and were mostly directed against the Serbs, resulting in hatred and violence.

SNV president Milorad Pupovac noted that the legislative framework included provisions that should prevent such manifestations, but they were not applied systematically and uniformly. He cited inconsistent court practice in the treatment of the Ustasha salute "For the Homeland Ready."

Pupovac said that the legislative changes were not sufficient if not supported by appropriate education and media policies. He said that other people too were targeted by hate speech and historical revisionism.

"Rudeness, intolerance and hatred are the three worrying types of discourse  when it comes to any differences, opposed views or identity. They can be stopped only if we fight for tolerance and discussion," Pupovac said.

The author of the report, Tihomir Ponoš, said that the findings were similar to those from previous years, but that the number of attacks was lower than in 2019, possibly partly due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A total of 214 cases of historical revisionism, hate speech and violence against Serbs were recorded in 2020, compared to 400 in 2019 and 381 to 2018.

The most frequent were insults and threats made against Serbs and Serb institutions in Croatia (50 cases), hate speech and ethnic intolerance in the media (3), ethnic intolerance and historical revisionism in statements by public figures (35), graffiti and insignia expressing hate speech and ethnic intolerance (30), physical assaults (21), hate speech and ethnic intolerance at sporting events (8), damaged or stolen property of individuals and Serb institutions (8), damaged or destroyed anti-fascist monuments (7), damaged or destroyed bilingual boards (3).

The SNV also expressed concern about a growing number of ethnic-based physical assaults in the eastern town of Vukovar, and the spraying of Ustasha insignia on the walls of public buildings and monuments.

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ZAGREB, 16 March, 2021 - In her report on 2020, Public Ombudswoman Lora Vidović warns that her recommendations are less and less complied with, which, she believes, can also be attributed to the fact that the parliament has still not discussed her reports for 2018 and 2019, a fact that has a number of long-term repercussions.

"An analysis of the government's opinion on the report for 2019 shows that the competent bodies acted or act in only 20% of the recommendations, which is less also in relation to the report for 2015 (29%), which the parliament did not adopt," says Vidović, whose eight-year term expired on 1 March. She did not apply for re-election.

"Especially worrying is the government's failure to respond to as many as 60% of the recommendations," says Vidović, who in her report for 2020 gave as many as 142 recommendations for stronger human rights protection in almost all areas of life, addressing them mostly to the competent ministries.

She also says that the Office for Human and Ethnic Minority Rights, as the body in charge of reporting on the implementation of the public ombudsman's reports, has not done so since her report for 2013.

"The absence of parliamentary debate evidently has a number of long-term repercussions that do not contribute to better human rights protection," says Vidović, noting that the Ministry of the Interior is still denying her office direct access to data on the treatment of irregular migrants in its computer system.

Most complaints refer to health system

The Office of the Public Ombudswoman, which in 2020 had 53 employees, acted in close to 5,000 cases, of which slightly over 2,900 were new ones, an increase of 16% from 2019.

This was mostly due to the coronavirus pandemic and earthquakes which have strongly affected human rights in Croatia, Vidović says, noting that just as in 2019, most of the complaints last year referred to the health system (328). For the first time, among the five most frequent types of complaints, with an increase of 49%, were public utilities.

Around 10% of all the new cases referred to the coronavirus epidemic and the number of such complaints would have probably been much higher had the office of the public ombudswoman not been damaged in the 22 March 2020 earthquake, which prevented it from receiving complaints regularly in the first months of the epidemic.  

The epidemic has strongly affected both patients and health workers, who have taken the brunt of the health crisis, Vidović says.

As regards patients, according to data from the Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO), in the first ten months of 2020 the number of visits to family doctors dropped by 21.5% compared to 2019, the number of visits by pre-school children dropped by 22.6%, and of those by women by 20.7%. At the same time, the number of services for which physical contact is not necessary rose by one-third.

Members of the public complained to the ombudswoman about having to wait in lines outside health clinics, having to speak about their health problems and family circumstances without any privacy and about being examined through the window of their family doctor's office.

Waiting lists for specialist examinations have not grown smaller and for certain types of examinations they have grown longer. The epidemic and the mobilisation of the health system in March and April, when only medical emergencies and COVID-19 cases were dealt with, caused a new disruption because a large number of examinations, diagnostic procedures and surgeries were cancelled or postponed until further notice, says Vidović.

According to HZZO data, the number of appointments for first-time specialist examinations dropped significantly in 2020 (from 129,356 in 2019 to 55,007), as did the number of follow-up appointments (280,599 as against 515,590 in 2019). The Health Ministry established a call centre to redirect patients to other hospitals in Zagreb but aside from that measure, the plans are not known as to how to provide citizens, within a reasonable time, with all medical services, says Vidović.

She also notes that Croatia has a shortage of family medicine teams (-121), pediatric health care teams (-52, mostly in Zagreb), dental medicine teams (-205) and gynecology teams (-58).

More than 270 decisions by national COVID-19 response team

Vidović also comments on decisions made by the national COVID-19 response team, saying that "its initial, as well as most of its subsequent decisions restricted basic rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and international documents, from freedom of movement and assembly to the right to privacy." She describes as particularly worrying the ban on or restriction of private gatherings.

She notes that the granting of permits to leave one's place of residence was uneven, and in some cases "some members of a household obtained them while other members of the same household were denied those permits without any explanation."

The permits also obstructed access to public services for residents of rural areas and islands, while the cancellation of public transport made health and social services in remote areas less available, notably for elderly people.

Citizens' having problem getting around the new circumstances was also due to the large number of decisions made by the national team, 271 by 13 January 2021.

Lack of timely and verified information

In her report for 2020, Vidović also comments on the Zagreb earthquake, noting that media and social networks showed that citizens did not receive timely and verified information on the competent institutions and available help, with the situation having been additionally complicated by epidemiological restrictions and restriction of movement. Public disputes about the way of financing post-earthquake reconstruction between the City of Zagreb and the competent ministry and objections that independent experts were not sufficiently consulted in the decision-making process have deepened mistrust of state institutions, she says.

She notes that "many citizens still do not know what to do and how to exercise their rights, and their mistrust of state institutions and the system is great."

By 18 January 2021, 202 applications were submitted regarding the exercise of legal rights related to reconstruction, she says, repeating that it is necessary to form mobile teams consisting of staff from the Construction Ministry and/or the City of Zagreb to advise citizens on the ground, free of charge, about their rights and help them write their applications.

The direct damage from the quake has been estimated at more than HRK 86 billion, and it is evident that reconstruction process will be long, complex and financially demanding, Vidović says in her report for 2020.

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