January the 10th, 2023 - Croatian politician Kreso Beljak, who has been the President of the Croatian Peasant Party since back in 2016, has openly admitted to crossing the Slovenian border to do his shopping since the euro Croatia price increase issue has become so apparent.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, while appearing as a recent guest of N1 studio, the President of the Croatian Peasant Party, Kreso Beljak, commented on the situation that is currently on everyone's lips - the very obvious euro Croatia price increase. Beljak says that he isn't surprised by any of these price increases: "Prices of items are determined by the market, and I'm not surprised that prices have risen. Obviously, the demand is like that. It's a simple rule of the market economy - the higher the demand for something is, the higher the price for it will be,"

That said, he made no effort to hide the fact that he thinks that the difference in prices between Croatia and neighbouring Slovenia is no less than shameful: "Personally, it doesn't matter to me or the people in Samobor if we go to Zagreb or Slovenia to do our shopping. In Slovenia, instead of 100 euros, I spent 70. My wife was on the phone to be back in Samobor comparing the prices. It's shameful,'' Beljak stated.

However, and rather surprisingly, Beljak doesn't really blame Plenkovic for this situation. "This situation is unsustainable, but to blame politics for it in the 21st century in a market economy, well... that's what we wanted in the 90s. We wanted the market to determine the price, not for the state to conduct it all. I do blame Plenković for another situation, though, he tries to get involved with things that politics shouldn't be involving itself with. The political spectrum should be dealing with the growth of salaries, pensions, tax relief, the reduction of levies and so forth. Plenkovic and HDZ do none of this. And that's another reason why our purchasing power is weak."

"If someone wants to buy something - that's a matter of the market. The market forms the prices, not the state. The state is there to ensure a higher salary, to make so people are able to buy more in such cases. The state needs to reduce the taxes and levies so that net wages rise, and as such, peoples' purchasing power."

When asked about blacklists for companies taking advantage of the euro Croatia price increase trend, Beljak explained: "Now it can be seen that certain omissions have been made. I think the intention was good in regard to giving people a period of two weeks, which now turns out to have complicated the situation even more. The euro should have been introduced on January the 1st, 2023, and kuna should have immediately been made so it exchanged for euros in banks for a period of one year."

"In general, I'm talking about a system that doesn't work, about an HDZ that doesn't work. It's hard to expect that such a party that simply doesn't care about people in the slightest would even think of doing anything to help or protect them. Plenkovic is now busy rubbing his hands together, and so is his finance minister, because every euro Croatia price increase is an increase in VAT and a bigger payment into the state budget,'' Beljak concluded, noting that HDZ wants more money for ''uhljebs''.

For more, make sure to check out our news section.

January the 6th, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've once again been dominated by headlines (both good and bad) about the introduction of the euro in Croatia, the country's accession to the Schengen passport-free zone, and price hikes.

Croatia finally joins Schengen

After being a member of the European Union (EU) since July 2013, Croatia has now finally taken a step into much deeper integration by joining the passport-free Schengen zone, the largest such zone on the planet, which enables the totally free movement of over 400 million people. The move will facilitate the ease of travel into and out of Croatia though land borders, with airports set to follow in March. The scenes we've all unfortunately become familiar with of endless queues at the Slovenian border to enter the country each summer, sometimes going on for hours on end, are now a thing of the past. With the opening of the Peljesac bridge back in July 2022 also, very similar queues at Neum (neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina's only small piece of coastline) were also resigned to the history books.

Croatian Schengen accession was long awaited, and a nail-biting decision process saw the southeastern European nation readily accepted, while two other candidates, Romania and Bulgaria, still have to wait. For a nation which relies extremely heavily on tourism and for which tourism is its strongest economic branch by far, passport-free entry from the rest of the Schengen zone will be of an enormous benefit, as for a great many people, Croatia is a country one can drive to without much of an issue. The same can be said of air traffic, which will (as mentioned above) begin following the new Schengen rules in March, by which planes coming into the country from other Schengen member states will be treated as domestic flights.

Businesses and particularly Croatian exporters have made no effort to hide their elation with Schengen membership, as it is something the latter in particular have been hoping and pushing for for many years now.

Croatia joins the Eurozone and officially adopts the euro as its currency

The big news doesn't end with joining Schengen, with the country also joining the Eurozone on the very same day (the 1st of January, 2023). No country has ever successfully joined both of these EU zones on the very same date before, and Croatia has had a lot of adjusting to do despite having a long time to prepare for the changes to both border and monetary policies. The scrapping of the kuna, which has been Croatia's official currency since May 1994, and the adoption of the bloc's single currency, has been a mixed bag for most of the population. While many are thrilled about further EU integration and no longer being victims of exchange rate fluctuations, others are mouring the loss of Croatia's control over its own monetary policy (despite the fact that the kuna has been stable and also tied to the euro in many ways for years), and are worried that prices will quickly start shooting up for all kinds of goods and services.

While people scramble to use the last of their kuna and annoying little lipa coins given the fact that kuna cash can still be spent across the country until the 15th of this month, change will only be returned in euro banknotes and coins. Introducing the brand new currency during inflation which is still spiralling is far from ideal, and many price hikes which we've seen since the introduction of the euro have unfortunately been the result of not only a new currency, but the difficult economic situation we're still finding ourselves in during the post-pandemic, raging Russia-Ukraine war period.

Many forget that the reason there was no referendum on joining the Eurozone or not was because it was signed and sealed and agreed when the country joined the EU. Unlike nations which had been founding members or were very old members, such as the United Kingdom, which could freely opt out of ever adopting the euro, it was part of the deal for Croatia and as such the referendum on joining was also the referendum on adopting the bloc's currency.

Some have raised their prices, and the government is on their case

Keen eyes have been observing the prices in the first week of euro adoption, with some going up and some staying as they were. Certain goods and services are slightly more expensive than they were in the pre-euro era, while others, such as the prices for tickets issued by Croatian Railways (HZ), have remained the same as they were when they were being expressed solely in kuna.

Plenkovic has even been threatening stores and the government has thought up the idea of creating a so-called ''black list'' of companies which have increased their prices following Eurozone accession, which some have referred to as a stupid and useless idea. The government has openly stated that it will not the body to drag prices back to what they should be, but that it will do everything in its power to force the businesses trying to cheat the situation for a euro or two more to do it themselves. Measures to tackle these abuses have been outlined here.

It's more than safe to say that people are rightfully feeling betrayed after months and months of being told by the powers that be that any prices increases will be temporary and minimal. You can read more on price increases and so-called ''price rounding'' by clicking here.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated politics section and keep an eye out for our Week in Croatian Politics articles which are published every Friday.

December the 17th, 2022 - Record Croatian inflation is sending the prices of food and drink skyrocketing as the pressures being placed on our pockets and bank accounts show little to no signs of letting up yet.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, at the annual level (comparing the months of November 2021 and November 2022), the prices of goods and services for personal consumption, as measured by the consumer price index, were on average a concerning 13.5% higher, the State Bureau of Statistics recently announced.

The latest statistical data shows that the growth of consumer prices has well and truly accelerated on an annual basis. According to the record data published to date, the highest rate of annual Croatian inflation so far was recorded in October, when it amounted to a worrying 13.2 percent.

The biggest increase was observed in the food and non-alcoholic beverages group

Observed according to the main groups of the ECOICOP classification, on an annual basis, the largest increase in consumer prices on average was achieved in the groups Food and non-alcoholic beverages, by 19.2%, Restaurants and hotels, by 17.0%, Furniture, home equipment and regular household maintenance by 16.6%, Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, by 16.5%, Transportation, by 13.3%, Various goods and services, by 11.6%, Recreation and culture, by 9.1%, Clothing and footwear, by 5.8%, Alcoholic beverages and tobacco, by 4.6%, Healthcare, by 4.1%, and Education, by 2.3%.

The largest contribution to the growth rate of the annual index was achieved in the groups Food and non-alcoholic beverages (+4.98 percentage points), Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (+2.78 percentage points), Transportation (+1.96 percentage points points), Furniture, home equipment and regular household maintenance (+0.95 percentage points), Restaurants and hotels (+0.85 percentage points), Miscellaneous goods and services (+0.72 percentage points), Recreation and culture ( +0.48 percentage points), Clothing and footwear (+0.34 percentage points), Alcoholic beverages and tobacco (+0.23 percentage points) and Healthcare (+0.13 percentage points).

Observed according to special groups, the highest increase in prices on average at the annual level was achieved in the Energy group, by 21.2% (contribution to the increase of +3.56 percentage points).

As Croatian inflation continues to make more and more people struggle to make ends meet each month and drag those who were on the breadline deeper into poverty, many are asking whether or not the government is doing anywhere near enough to really curb the events of this unprecedented living crisis.

For more, check out our dedicated news section.

November the 23rd, 2022 - The price of meat has shot up across Croatia, and this Croatian item is edging closer and closer to becoming somewhat of a luxury product. Here are the main reasons why.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the ongoing global crisis and bad domestic policy decisions led to a weakening of domestic production and less availability of meat products to Croatian customers. The result of this set of deeply unfavourable circumstances led to a significant increase in the price of meat, which could soon become a luxury Croatian item, reports DW.

The meat industry here in the Republic of Croatia is facing ever-increasing problems, and with it so are meat consumers, who are needing to fork out ever-higher prices to purchase meat. The cost of fattening cattle up in Croatia has doubled this year, meaning the cost of production in Croatia is at the very top of the European Union (EU). The situation is worse only in the Baltic countries of Latvia and Lithuania.

At the same time, Croatian imports of pork have more than doubled since the time before Croatia joined the EU back in July 2013. With regard to the entire production chain, the sector was also affected by the closure of the Petrokemija fertiliser factory in Kutina, according to Deutsche Welle.

The cause of this situation is not only the global crisis...

"Not only is it imported, but it's also encouraged by part of the support system in agriculture, already years ago. This endangers the development, but also the very survival of domestic animal husbandry, especially when it comes to pig and cattle breeding,'' says agricultural analyst and former producer in animal husbandry and dairying, Miroslav Kovac. He warned of the poor state of domestic cultivation, along with the establishment of the internal market and the disposal of important agricultural land.

"There's no state, no system, no people, nobody that is ready to withstand the pressure of lost values ​​like what has happened here in Croatia. The domestic population of pigs and cattle has been destroyed, in the long term, obviously, by bad political decisions, without a clear goal in space and with people, most often guided by "fireman's" logic. Dependence is increasing, and the price is increasing along with it. The biggest misfortune of all is the decimation of breeders and the obliteration of their logic of development," Kovac added.

"When will we stop sawing the branch we're sitting on?"

According to Kovac's beliefs, the public's attention shifted from the need for quick solutions here in the Republic of Croatia to the problems faced by importers. In the long run, this isn't at all good for the individual, nor for the Croatian economy as a whole: "How long will it take for us to understand the logic of the functioning of organised countries in this particular segment and stop sawing the branch we're sitting on?'' he asked.

"If we continue doing what we were doing before, the prices will rise across the entire supply chain, and even faster here, and the difference in price aside from business profits will melt away. Here, however, the current practice of emergency and partial interventions costing millions at the expense of the state and EU budgets will not help us, as it has never been the case before. I emphasise the logic of the development and preservation of the domestic economy, and now it's also in the wider context of the EU, and by no means is any of this only of individual interest,'' warned Kovac.

"Croatian agricultural policies are to blame"

Kovac has previously criticised Croatian agricultural policy due to the apparent stagnation of the sector. At the same time, neighbouring EU members Slovenia and Hungary are taking a number of quality steps forward, which have raised their production to quite an enviable level. Of course, there's also a jump in prices to take into consideration, but domestic production is in much better condition, with fewer imports and costs borne by local customers.

"Having run out of raw materials from domestic sources, problems with prices will spill over to consumers, who are the ultimate payers, including the value added tax that is charged on top of everything and isn't negligible for a long time,'' explained the analyst.

The news from the Croatian agricultural sector is somewhat dramatic: this autumn, according to Eurostat, the price of chicken in Croatia rose by 35.5 percent compared to the same period last year, while the EU average stood at 26.7 percent. It must be expressed that this refers to the placement of meat in sorted categories, while the Croatian Government capped the price of a whole chicken to just 24.99 kuna, along with products in some other meat categories.

Is Croatia condemned to imports?

Overall, the price of meat has risen significantly, seeing it become closer than ever to a luxury Croatian items. As a result, demand decreases, which in turn leads to further price increases. We can't even influence some factors, for example, the import of artificial fertilisers that came from Russia. Urea from Russia was sold in Croatia at a price three times higher than it was last year, when the Croatian market still had domestic products of this type of its own. Condemned to imported goods, Croatian farmers reduced their consumption of fertilisers, and consequently their yields. Because of this, some have already given up meat production and switched to arable farming or left the sector of agriculture altogether.

What do the manufacturers think about everything?

How the situation looks from that angle was explained by one of the largest producers in all of the Republic of Croatia - the Pivac Group. Today, too, they primarily point out that, due to market disturbances, their input production costs are constantly increasing. 

"Our production has risen in price by more than 30 percent this year alone, and due to inflation and the energy crisis, the increase in input prices will be a challenge in the future as well," the president of the group, Ivica Pivac, revealed. He emphasised that, when it comes to basic raw materials, their strategic focus on their own livestock production proved correct. However, the increase in animal feed prices by more than 80 percent influenced a significant increase in costs in this segment of production as well.

Uncertain market opportunities

"Although all of our input costs have increased, we constantly strive to minimise the impact of market disruptions on our end customers. However, unfortunately it wasn't possible to avoid price corrections. Otherwise, we'd be calling the sustainability of our production and supply into question," said Pivac.

Compared to last year's prices in Pivac stores, the current price of certain cuts of pork has increased by 18 percent, and when it comes to their most popular product, prosciutto, its price has increased by 20 percent. "Uncertain market conditions make it difficult to project price movements, however, we're going to continue to do everything we can so that the increase in input costs affects our customers as little as possible,'' assured Ivica Pivac, emphasising that for his company "when planning business, the focus remains on investments in self-sufficiency, production capacities and human resources,'' but it is still not known whether this will be enough to amortise the crisis stress for consumers and stop meat becoming a luxury Croatian item which is simply not affordable to some.

For more on inflation and increases in the cost of living in Croatia, keep up with our news section.

August 6, 2022 - Living costs keep climbing in Europe, including housing and rent, and Croatia is no exception. With the government policies favouring tourist rentals, there is a shortage of any, especially affordable housing in the cities. While the government sleeps on the issue, private investors are quick to recognise a niche. Erste Group prepares to run an affordable housing project.

As Poslovni writes, the absence of a housing policy in Croatia has led to the absurd situation that the residential real estate market in Zagreb and larger cities is oriented toward tourist rentals, pushing up square footage prices, and making real estate unavailable to the local population with average income.

The profession keeps warning in vain about the problem and social repercussions, but it seems that private capital has recognised a niche in what should have been dealt with by policies.

The Austrian Erste Group has launched a strategic affordable housing project that will build 15,000 apartments in the region, including Croatia, and rent them out at affordable prices. The local project is still in its infancy, and the detailed outlines of the model should be clearer by the end of the year.

“The idea of ​​realising affordable housing is very current in the environment of growing inflation and rising real estate prices in many European countries, including Croatia. In principle, there are positive examples in other countries, such as Austria, and such a model can be a good generator of cooperation between local administrations and banks, which contributes to ensuring a kind of social stability”, says the local Erste.

In Croatia, the bank has started preparations in this segment. "At this moment it is still too early for details, and it is to be expected that the bank will be able to share information with the public within a reasonable time, most likely towards the end of the current year", they told Poslovni. Unofficially, Poslovni has learned that the project could first come to life in Rijeka and then in the capital, but there is still a need to devise models and work out cooperation with local authorities.

In doing so, the regulatory framework that paved the way for implementation in other countries will be crucial. In Austria, with a long-standing tradition of affordable housing, about one billion euros was invested in about 6,000 apartments for rent. In the Czech Republic, the bank founded a separate company for the construction of affordable apartments, while in Slovakia, where the co-investor is the government, about 200 apartments in 2022. Similar projects in Hungary and Romania are in the preparation phase.

There are several open questions to which answers will be sought in the coming months, starting with an adequate model. For example, if it will be a public-private partnership or some alternative such as reserving building rights.

The legal framework should regulate the rental market and the mutual relations (and protection) of tenants and landlords because an unregulated market regularly tells horror stories about landlords and tenants from hell, where it turns out that the key factor in renting is luck. However, it will come down to taxes to ensure that the affordable rental price remains some 10 or 20 percent lower than the market price.

According to the income tax law, it is possible to penalise selling or renting to natural persons at prices lower than market prices (on which additional taxes and contributions are calculated), so the treatment of affordable rent should be regulated because it aims to be lower than the market price by definition.

Housing is a need

The interlocutors point out that there is no possibility of VAT deduction during construction (or acquisition) if the purpose is to lease for housing, which consequently inflates the value of the investment and rent.

With the current rental prices, which the profession points out as some of the lowest in the EU, developers are not interested in building apartments for rent due to long payback periods (20-30 years), which is why it will be difficult for the initiative of affordable housing to move from a standstill without the cooperation of the state and local units (from taxes to all other benefits).

Even though he has not yet seen the details of the model, Dubravko Ranilović from the real estate agency Kastel-Zagreb points out that Croatia has a specific problem that, for example, apartments are not available for young families who are not creditworthy. “In principle, we support all initiatives. We need social programs so that housing can be available to citizens because it is a need”, he says.

The market is flooded with apartments for rent, but tourist apartments. The number of tourism listings outnumbers long-term rentals by four times, with forecasts that the gap will still widen. Ranilović sees a partial reason for this in the preferential tax treatment, which has “created a tax oasis in the taxation of tourist rentals”, so apartments have expanded into residential areas, taking away part of the space in favor of short-term rentals, and the situation is further aggravated by subsidies.

Tax policy, which steadily pushes the country towards apartment building, is part of the puzzle of the lack of a meaningful housing policy.

The government is not abandoning the housing loan subsidy program despite criticism that it freezes prices (or even pushes them up) being available only to a small group of citizens, while all others (those with weaker creditworthiness, the elderly, or simply those who do not meet the prescribed tender conditions) have to pay a higher price.

The neglected middle layer

“The corporate segment recognised that with the current dynamics of the real estate market and the rampant prices, the middle class of society with incomes for which the price of new square meters and existing square meters of apartments are not affordable has been neglected.

This is a large segment of society, the demand is high and will remain so in the future, especially in Zagreb and university cities, and this is where Erste sees the creation of a new niche”, says Vedrana Likan of Colliers.

He detects the problem in the lack of regulation, pointing out that the domestic legal framework does not know the terms of affordable housing or, for example, housing accessible to the elderly population, and if this were regulated, the market would already recognise the opportunity.

“Affordable housing does not necessarily have to include new construction, a lot would be done if someone dealt with the existing housing stock”, believes Likan. Colliers' analysis, for example, shows that there are 7,074 apartments with an area of 410,600 square meters owned by the city of Zagreb and city companies alone, which could be used precisely for affordable and social housing.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

June the 16th, 2022 - Ongoing inflation is continuing to force Croatian price lists to alter more and more frequently, with some very simple services now significantly more expensive than they were this time last year.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the increase in prices across all fields owing to inflation has particularly affected Croatian islanders, and even on the gorgeous Central Dalmatian island of Korcula, company owners had to adjust their business to the recent price increases, writes HRT. As costs increase, it's now questionable how altering Croatian price lists will affect the upcoming height of the summer tourist season.

New Croatian price lists - new measures. The recent price increases have greatly affected all of the island of Korcula's small business owners, and they've had to adjust their business to this new and rapidly changing situation.

“Some artisans and small business owners had to increase their prices, some had to lay off workers, some were thinking about it. Everything is difficult, materials have become more expensive, fuel has become more expensive, now electricity also has, and what's worse, we don't know how it's going to go on like this and to what extent it will continue,'' pointed out Mihovil Depolo, President of the Korcula-Lastovo Association of Craftsmen.

Most craftsmen from this particular island have changed their price lists in line with rising costs, meaning that their prices, in order for their businesses to survive, are higher almost all over.

"We were forced to raise our ice cream prices, and a scoop of ice cream went from 12 kuna to 15 kuna, maybe it's symbolic as it's a mere three kuna, but it means a lot to us because looking at the example of a litre of milk I need to make the ice cream, well... I can't find that for under nine kuna,'' said Korcula pastry chef Jagoda Milina.

"We've increased our prices a little, we haven't done it by much, ten kuna, so enough cover this increase in fuel prices because fuel has risen by 50 percent when compared to last year," said the president of the Korcula Barcarioli, Stipe Separovic. However, it seems that tourists are also aware of the situation, and aren't too bothered about the altering of Croatian price lists on the island.

"It's not extremely expensive, it's kind of in our country, in big centres it's always a little more expensive, but it isn't too expensive for us. It's okay,'' said Marius from Lithuania.

“I love the grocery stores here, I think the prices are fair, just like when we eat out,” added Jessica from Florida.

"It's similar to some larger cities, except that in restaurants I'd say that the prices may be a little higher, but let's say in stores it's similar, more or less," believes Aleksandar from Serbia.

The global coronavirus pandemic is now finally behind us and a thing of the past, but with new price increases, it seems that another uncertain summer tourist season awaits small business owners and artisans on the islands.

For more, check out our business section.

June the 6th, 2022 - Croatian residents are unfortunately going to have to tighten their belts once again as a new wave of price hikes for things used almost daily is on the horizon.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the fact that Croatian residents are expecting major economic and social blows to continue as we move forward has been evidenced, among other things, by all of the upcoming price increases that were announced in just one day, according to a report from Index.

Fuel

The media has unfortunately announced a drastic increase in fuel prices in Croatia for next week.

Next week, a litre of diesel will increase significantly - by 83 lipa per litre - and the new price will be around 13.97 kuna. For a litre of petrol, Croatian residents will have to pay 70 lipa more, meaning that one litre of petrol will cost 14.56 kuna. In addition to that, the price of blue diesel will increase by 84 lipa, the price of a litre of blue diesel will therefore be 10.09 kuna.

Telecom services

All three leading telecom companies in Croatia, it seems, have decided to increase the price of at least some of their services. These price increases should become evident as of July the 1st, 2022, and, according to the information available so far, they're primarily related to mobile services.

Heating

Heating price hikes for the residents of Zagreb, Osijek, Sisak, Velika Gorica, Samobor and Zapresic have also been announced, as was reported by HRT.

Vehicle registration procedures

Of all the announced price increases for the country in the last 24 hours, the fourth regards the procedures surrounding vehicle registration.

Car registration could increase by about thirty kuna, due to additional insurance needing to be taken out in the case of incidents with wild animals on the country's roads. In the first tender, the Ministry of Agriculture failed to contract a single insurance policy with insurance companies that believe that the offered 40 million kuna is not enough to cover the total damages this type of road accident incurs.

For more on inflation, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

March the 28th, 2022 - Could Croatian coffee prices in the country's countless cafes also soar as a result of the current inflation wave? With just about everything going up in price quite significantly, cafe owners could end up being forced to up Croatian coffee prices.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Vedran Jakominic, president of the Association of Caterers of Kvarner and Istria, recently commented on the formation of new price lists for cafes for N1 television. He said that they have already formed new price lists, but that they don't know how long they will remain sustainable because the situation regarding inflation across the world is constantly changing.

"We seem to have been living in some sort of bad joke since 2017, when VAT doubled, then things started to calm down and then the global coronavirus pandemic came. Now we seem to finally be coming out of the pandemic and now we've got a war. The prices of all groceries and goods has risen, energy prices have exploded three or four times. But while this war is going on and terrible images continue to roll in from Ukraine, I think we'll manage to tighten our belts and survive, it's better than what's happening to the Ukrainians. But if you were to ask of me if this situation is good... well, it isn't at all,'' said Vedran Jakominic.

He pointed out that Croatian coffee prices aren't rising because of the basic product of coffee itself, but the biggest problem is energy prices and of course, you need energy to create this country's cult drink.

"In order to compensate for the increase in the price of electricity, you have to increase the price of coffee by one kuna, in order to compensate for the increase in the price of gas, you have to raise Croatian coffee prices by one to two kuna. Gas shot up for companies by 400 percent, electricity went up three times as well. For the average restaurant, this may mean that from paying around 8,000 kuna, their electricity bill soared to a massive 35,000 kuna. You can't correct that many price lists,'' explained Jakominic, adding that a basic espresso in Rijeka currently costs from 8 to 11 kuna. They aren't asking for a VAT reduction because they have, quite simply and understandably, all but lost faith in state aid.

"I just don't expect anything from the state anymore. They've shown that they have other interests. I understand that getting voters on side is more important. The state reacted well at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, but that help has faded over time," he concluded.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

March the 27th, 2022 - The price of the most basic white Croatian bread could soar to never before seen prices if inflation and the price of energy continues to go on as it has been.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, if the energy market fails to stabilise soon, which is why we're recording higher wheat prices these days, basic white Croatian bread could reach an unprecedented price of as much as 15 kuna per piece, as was confirmed by the director of Zitozajednica, Nada Barisic, to Jutarnji list.

Predictions are currently within the price of 15 kuna, according to Jutarnji list.

As Barisic told the aforementioned publication, the Croatian bakery industry is quite worried because the price of wheat is currently at record levels, and the situation changing so rapidly that contracts with suppliers are being signed for a maximum of one month at a time because nobody can, nor do they want want to guarantee that these prices will not change again and again.

A tonne of wheat on the French stock exchange currently costs 400 euros, in Argentina 354, and in Chicago 399 euros per tonne, which means that for a kilogram of wheat it is now necessary to set aside as much as three kuna in this country.

Furthermore, the average wholesale price of plain, white flour in 2021 stood at 2.50 kuna per kilogram, while it is currently at the level of four kuna, and the increase in wholesale prices has already spilled over to the prices of retail products and as such, nobody can guarantee that it will not grow further.

"As you can see, a kilo of flour in Croatian stores is now ten kuna, which is the best evidence of the market situation. The prices of bakery products across Croatia in general have been growing steadily since 2020, and although most analysts had previously predicted that the situation would stabilise by now, this hasn't happened and we can see the market going quite wild, as a result of rising energy and fuel prices,'' Barisic said.

Last year, 1,100,000 tonnes of wheat were harvested, of which about 400,000 tonnes of which were used for domestic needs, which shows that there is enough grain for domestic needs and for export, but possible difficulties will arise if there is too much demand globally, which can once again result in price increases.

"Everything is very uncertain and the Croatian bakery sector is in big trouble. We can be calm when it comes to the supply of wheat, but not in terms of prices. It's likely that, if there is no stabilisation, we will no longer be able to eat even the most basic white Croatian bread at current prices and that the possible price will end up being 15 kuna for a loaf of white bread,'' confirmed Barisic.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

March the 7th, 2022 - With Croatian inflation measures set to come into force on the first of next month, just how much will Croatian electricity prices rise after that date?

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP) has announced its new Croatian electricity prices, which will be in force from April the 1st, and it seems that electricity will still be more expensive for some consumers than what Prime Minister Plenkovic announced it would be back in mid-February.

Back in mid-February, the Croatian Government adopted a package of measures to try to put a cap on soaring energy prices, according to which VAT on electricity will remain at 13 percent, and Prime Minister Plenkovic announced that electricity prices for households should increase by up to 9.6 percent. Without the introduction of these government measures, the growth of prices for households across the country would stand at 23 percent, all because the price of electricity on stock exchanges has quadrupled in just one year, writes Energetika-net.

However, the published price lists from HEP suggest that the price increase for most people who have dual-tariff metres in their homes will be higher than expected, at least according to their current calculations.

"The 9.6 percent increase in Croatian electricity prices was probably used in the presentation as a represenation of a mix of different types of consumers, but it doesn't apply to all consumers in the ''household'' category. When the tariff items published by HEP Elektra (universal service) and HERA are applied, households will receive bills which are 8 percent higher from this supplier as of the 1st of April for one tariff metres, while two-tariff metres (TM white) will receive bills which are higher by 11 percent.

When it comes to the question of whether or not Croatian electricity prices for end users will actually increase even more, it all depends on HEP's decision, ie whether they will start collecting a solidarity fee, which they haven't been collecting so far. In that case, the bills for one tariff metres (blue) would grow by 11 percent, and for two-tariff metres (white), by 14 percent. As for HEP Supply (HEPI), the average growth will be 14 percent, and if the solidarity fee does indeed start being collected, then growth will rise to 17 percent. These calculations include VAT,'' explained Nenad Kurtovic from the Split Consumer Association.

When asked by Novi list about their new tariffs, HEP replied that the amount of change in the cost of electricity will all depend on the tariff model and of course on the overall consumption of each individual customer.

"As announced in the presentation of the package of inflation measures to mitigate the growth of energy prices by the Croatian Government, the average electricity bill will increase by 9.6 percent. The amount of the change in cost in each individual case will depend on the tariff model and the amount of electricity consumed, as well as on the ratio of consumption in the higher and lower tariffs,'' HEP replied.

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