January the 2nd, 2022 - From parking, prices and EU declarations to US visas and revenge porn laws, a lot has now changed since 2022 rolled around. Croatian Lawyers Dora Ljevar and Danijel Pribanic listed some of this year's most important Croatian rule changes for Savjeti.hr/Advice.hr.

Consumer protection

If a product can be repaired, the customer will no longer have the right to choose whether or not they simply want a replacement product or a product repair, which retailers should state in their general terms and conditions when selling items. The general conditions should clearly distinguish consumer rights under the commercial guarantee from consumer rights under the rules for defects.

Expertise

The cost of expertise to determine the existence of defects has so far been borne by the trader if the material defect occurred within six months of purchase of an item, regardless of whether the responsibility for the defect lies with the trader or the consumer themselves. Now we're in 2022, the deadline for the defect is one year from the date of delivery, but the trader will be able to ask the consumer to return the paid expertise when the trader is found to be the one who is not responsible for the defect.

Parking

The service of parking in arranged public areas and garages is now classed as a public service, which obliges companies to organise a commission for consumer complaints and other legal adjustments.

Pricing

During price reductions and all possible promotions, the retailer must keep the old price, the new price and the lowest price at which the product has been sold in the past 30 days visible at all times.

Declarations

If the goods differ significantly in terms of their ingredients or other properties from the goods sold in other European Union (EU) member states, the product must not be written down as if it is identical to a product sold in other EU member states. When it comes to these differences in certain goods and products, traders will be able to justify everything to the inspection by referring to legal differences, consumer expectations and so on.

Croatian citizenship can be gained until the end of 2023 according to simpler rules...

Until the end of 2023, foreigners born from 1991 onwards, of whom at least one parent was a Croatian citizen at the time of the foreigner's birth, can apply for Croatian citizenship according to far simpler rules. This is useful for the descendants of Croatian emigrants who no longer need to prove their affiliation with the Croatian people by participating in the work of folklore clubs and the like.

Quotas for the employment of foreigners (non-EEA nationals and Brits who aren't covered by the Withdrawal Agreement)

Now we've entered 2022, in addition to the possibility of employing foreigners from within a quota, it is also possible to employ other staff without prior implementation of the so-called labour market test. The most important sectors in which there is no quota are tourism, catering and hospitality and agriculture, if employment is carried out for a period of up to 90 days.

Taxes

Income tax and capital gains tax have been reduced from 12 percent down to 10 percent. Income tax has been reduced from 12 percent down to 10 percent (for taxpayers with income of up to 7.5 million kuna). The capital gains tax was also reduced from 12 percent down to 10 percent. The Minister of Finance announced that in 2022, there will be no change in the tax system.

Revenge porn is now fully classed as a crime under a new Croatian rule

Revenge porn is often used following a breakup by a bitter ex, in which sexually explicit videos and pictures intended for private enjoyment between the two partners are made public or shared by one typically scorned ex. Sometimes footage of the kind ends up uploaded to porn sites. Thankfully, the misuse of sexually explicit footage (revenge porn) has become a new crime under a Croatian rule for 2022. All those who distribute sexually explicit content, made with the consent for personal use only, to others without the consent of the person being filmed or photographed, thus violating their right to privacy, will be properly sanctioned.

As a criminal offense, it is also prescribed to sanction offenses related to so-called ''deepfake pornography'', ie using modern technology to manipulate explicit content by digitally replacing a character in an image or video or using modern technology to create new, manipulative content, with the aim of violating someone's privacy.

These criminal offenses are punishable by up to one year in prison under the new Croatian rule, or up to three years if the recording has become available to a larger number of people or has been uploaded to a porn site.

The censorship of comments made on the Internet

Amendments to the Law on Electronic Media portals means that the owners of electronic publications are responsible for all of the content they publish, including content generated by users, which means that editors and media owners may be punished for racist or homophobic comments made by angry readers under their journalistic texts on portals. This has already led to censorship, and some portals have banned readers' comments as a result because the fine is from 100,000 to 1 million kuna.

Lawsuits against leasing companies

Back in April 2021, HANFA found that leasing companies were overcharging their customers. The clients of leasing companies should apply to leasing companies with a request for a refund. Lawsuits are underway to determine (over the next few years) whether those leasing companies that refuse to return funds with a reference to the statute of limitations are right or wrong.

Cryptocurrency taxation

The company Electrocoin enabled the ability for people to make payments in cryptocurrencies with the cities of Cres and Sveta Nedelja, as well as within the companies Konzum and Tifon. From 2021, the change from cryptocurrency to fiat money (government-issued currency) will be taxed at a single capital gains tax rate of 10 percent on the difference in value increase. Exceptionally, if a cryptocurrency is held for a period that exceeds two calendar years, no tax needs to be paid, and the replacement of a cryptocurrency with another cryptocurrency is not taxed. Income tax is paid on crypto mining income is set at rates depending on the status of the taxpayer.

Euro loans

In addition to loans in Swiss francs, it is now possible to challenge euro loans that had unfair provisions attached to them.

The Croatian Labour Law

Amendments to the Labour Law will apply to workers working through online platforms, defining work from home and the time of availability of workers after working hours for calls and emails will be defined in more detail.

The ordinance on covid certificates

Every employer who keeps records of employee covid certificates should have appropriate regulations attached to them, harmonised with GDPR.

Minimum wage in 2022

The current minimum wage for full-time work is 4,250 kuna, and in 2022 it will increase to 4,687.50 kuna. This is an increase of about 350 kuna in terms of net amount.

The establishment of a fund for the payment of compensation to vaccine victims

The European Parliament has launched a procedure to set up a fund to compensate those who suffered a sa result of getting their coronavirus vaccine. About a million cases of side effects have been reported across the EU so far.

US visas

A simplified regime for issuing a permit to enter the United States has been introduced for Croatian citizens.

These are just some of the new Croatian rule changes which came into force as we entered the year 2022. For more, check out our politics section.