ZAGREB, 30 March 2022 - The committee on the Constitution on Wednesday recommended by majority vote that parliament forward the questions from the Bridge party's referendum petitions against COVID certificates, and the national COVID crisis management team, to the Constitutional Court for assessment.

Parliament is expected to vote on the recommendation before the Easter recess.

Seven members of the parliamentary committee were for and five against asking the Constitutional Court to assess the question against the certificates, while 11 were for and one - Božo Petrov of Bridge - against the constitutionality test for the question against the crisis management team.

The opposition Bridge wants Article 17 of the Constitution to include the declaration of an epidemic as a moment when constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms can be restricted, but only by a two-thirds majority in parliament.

The party also wants the law protecting the population from infectious diseases to be amended so that parliament, and not a national crisis management team, decides on restrictions of rights and freedoms.

Nikola Grmoja of Bridge requested the recusal of judge Miroslav Šumanović if the Constitutional Court will assess the referendum questions because of his statement in 2019 that the people cannot decide by referendum on changing the Constitution.

Petrov said the conditions for holding the referendum had been met and that it should be called without the Constitutional Court's opinion.

According to the opposition Social Democratic Party, the petition to amend the law was not prepared well, that it is against the Constitution, and that the court should assess it. "It's simply impossible for every decision, including technical ones, to be implemented through parliament," party president Peđa Grbin said.

Constitutional law expert Sanja Barić said two decisions should be made. "The legislative petition is counter-constitutional, and I doubt the constitutionality of the petition to change the Constitution."

Bridge called her out for acting as a politician and not an expert.

The committee's external member, constitutional law expert Branko Smerdel, said the Constitutional Court should assess both questions. He warned about a flood of populists and "referendum-mania", pushing for amending the referendum law.

The Constitutional Court has 30 days to say if the referendum questions are in compliance with the Constitution.

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ZAGREB, 22 Jan 2022 - Commenting on the average pay in Croatia having increased from HRK 5,642 (€750) at the start of his government's term to HRK 7,333 (€975), PM Andrej Plenković said in a Twitter post on Saturday Croatia had weathered the COVID-19 crisis.

"With our GDP growing strongly, jobs having been kept and public debt being reduced at a fast rate, we have overcome the COVID-19 crisis," the PM said.

He added that now, with reforms and secured EU funds, Croatia was about to achieve even faster growth and a better life for its citizens.

According to the national statistical office, the average pay in Croatia in November 2021 was HRK 7,333 while at the start of the current government's term, in October 2016, it stood at HRK 5,642.

(€1 = HRK 7.52)

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ZAGREB, 31 Oct. 2021 - The Croatian Association of Hospital Doctors (HUBOL) warned on Sunday that the situation in hospitals treating COVID-19 patients was difficult as more and more arrive every day because, it said, the virus is allowed to spread and those in charge are doing nothing about it, shirking responsibility.

The healthcare system is disappearing, HUBOL said in a press release.

The system does not exist when COVID-19 patients wait for hours to be admitted because there is no room, it does not exist when we don't have enough anesthesiologists, infectious disease specialists and internists who know how to treat people with destroyed lungs, it does not exist when you need a connection to get a bed supplied with oxygen as soon as possible, HUBOL said.

The system does not exist when patients will be treated for complications by a surgeon, gynecologist or other such doctor, and when those who decide if the system is overloaded get services with one call to the hospital administration, HUBOL said. "They and their relatives, friends and acquaintances don't wait in lines."

While those in charge "are doing nothing... the increasingly tired people who make up the healthcare system will soon have to stop with operations and examinations for other diseases because they are on COVID wards," HUBOL said.

They are there "because the virus is being allowed to spread," and in those wards "one will soon have to decide which patient to put in a bed with oxygen or a ventilator."

"The virus is spreading as much as we allow it to, the president of the epidemiological society said recently. Those whose responsibility it is to stop the virus from spreading among the population, with all the procedures and measures necessary (as in Denmark, for instance), inform us every day in a sedating voice about the increasing numbers of hospitalisations and deaths, washing their hands of their responsibility and reason for existing," HUBOL said.

"After all, only people in the Balkans, not some 'stupid' Danes, can allow such spreading of the virus and numbers of hospitalisations and deaths."

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ZAGREB, 15 Aug, 2021 - President Zoran Milanović on Saturday attended a meeting of the Jelsa Municipal Council on Hvar island on the occasion of the municipality's day, as did Health Minister Vili Beroš as Prime Minister Andrej Plenković's envoy.

Beroš said at the meeting that the tourism results were brilliant owing to the national COVID crisis management team's thinking as well as everyone who complied with the restrictions.

He called for caution "because we don't know what the situation will be like in the autumn," adding that vaccination was the only way out of the crisis.

He said 49.7% of the adult population was vaccinated and that those who were not "represent a reservoir of a possible continuation of new coronavirus variants."

"We are still in the orange (COVID zone), but our position on the ECDC list is unstable. The rising numbers warn that the virus is among us and this position on the list could deteriorate. That won't end the tourist season, but if the epidemic flares up, it could disrupt health plans and plans for the post-season."

Beroš went on to say that big reforms were expected in the health sector, that the system was burdened with many problems, and that the COVID crisis had highlighted all that was good in the system as well as many negative things.

Commenting on Beroš's speech, Milanović said that "we have been living in abnormal circumstances for a year already, on the brink of encroaching upon human freedoms, which requires firm, clear justifications understandable to everyone."

"For now we are holding on and what I see as the most endangered is people's mental health. This will pass. I support the minister and I support any reasonable and persistent policy whose goal is good. So, get vaccinated and most of the problems will be solved," he said.

The president said prejudices were not smart, either about science or something based on proof, research and the trial and error method in which, he added, success was guaranteed and errors  were minor or reduced to the statistical minimum.

"What has been developed in the past year and a half is one of the greatest triumphs in the history of human knowledge, human organisation and synergy. It's an example of synergy, intelligence and money in a short time. Let's get vaccinated!"

Speaking on the occasion of Jelsa Municipality Day, the president said the people of Jelsa were developing their municipality well and in harmony.

He added that every society and politics must start from people's right and possibility to organise into everything that was not subversive or destructive.

Milanović said "we owe loyalty to the Croatian state, which is our national, civic state. It has its territory, its borders, open, human... it has its customs, its history, it also has its prejudices."

He supported everyone who fought for Croatia having such a status in Europe because, he said, the EU was not what had been conceived many years ago, but it was good. "In that world, we are fighting for our interest."

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