May the 26th, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've had visits from American generals and military exercises carried out in Udbina, drama surrounding the amendments to the Law on Constituencies, Plenkovic's reforms have been dragged by those in economic circles and the infamous topic of property tax has once again reared its ugly head.

Croatian Defense Minister Mario Banozic meets with American Armed Forces General Christopher Gerard Cavoli 

Banozic and Cavoli have met before the upcoming NATO summit in July, coming together to discuss Europe's overall security situation and emphasise how joint exercises are an indication of the importance of NATO. Cavoli is not only a United States Army General, but has also served as the commander of United States European Command since the 1st of July 2022 and as Supreme Allied Commander Europe since the 4th of July 2022. Cavoli has been on a two-day working visit to the country as part of some international military exercises in Udbina which are being carried out under the organisation of US commands.

The NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital city of Vilnius in July was a hot topic for the pair, and Banozic made sure to thank the US General for all that has been done in terms of support, training and more for the Croatian Army recently. US efforts extended towards the Croatian Armed Forces also include modernisation and joint exercises. He also touched on the friendship and partnership of the USA and Croatia, emphasising the need to continue as we go forward with strong bilateral relations, especially in terms of defense.

"The joint training of allied forces like what is currently taking place here in Croatia is one of the best indicators of NATO's significance, as it simultaneously improves capabilities, develops the interoperability of allied forces and sends out a firm a message of togetherness, cohesion and unity," said Banozic according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Defense.

That same statement noted that the Republic of Croatia has made many steps forward and put in a lot of effort in terms of continuing to modernise its army, from the procurement of military aircraft to the implementation of all kinds of joint decisions, which is something he assured would continue in the future as well.

"Croatia is currently participating in thirteen different missions, operations and activities. For us, the security and stability of Southeast Europe is extremely important, which is why Croatia will continue to participate in KFOR. It will also continue to support the processes of Euro-Atlantic integration of the countries of Southeastern Europe," Banozic explained.

New Croatian constituencies/electoral units have been presented, and drama has ensued

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has officially presented the amendments to the Law on Constituencies, and people are unhappy about it for more than a few reasons, as is always the case in Croatian politics. There are now 10 constituencies that will elect 14 representatives each, and about 80 percent of voters have remained in their same/original constituencies. The City of Zagreb will now consist of three constituencies instead of four, and this is the most important change, at least according to Plenkovic.

"A minor modification"

Presenting the amendments to the Law on Constituencies, Plenkovic emphasised that this is only a minor modification of the existing map of Croatian constituencies, whereby only 22 percent of voters will see a change to the constituencies they've been until now.

The new law should enter into force on October the 1st, 2023

Amendments to the law in the first parliamentary reading will be sent before the summer break, so that the second reading would take place after the summer break is over, i.e. in the first two weeks of September, and the law would enter into force on October the 1st, since at the end of September, based on the decision of the Constitutional court, the current Law will cease to be valid.

Referring to the decision of the Constitutional Court of February the 7th, 2023, Plenkovic said that changes in the law should ensure the ''equal weighting'' of the vote, that electoral units follow administrative boundaries as much as possible (counties, municipalities, cities) and that there should be no deviations in the number of voters per individual electoral unit to be greater than plus or minus five percent.

"We did want to keep the existing model"

"In the political sense, as a government, we wanted to achieve a situation in which we'd keep the existing model of 10 constituencies in which 14 representatives are elected. So, the Constitutional Court gave us the opportunity to, based on what they said, practically modify the existing system and to achieve equality, the equal treatment of both voters and representatives who are elected to the Croatian Parliament," he said.

78 percent of voters will remain in the same constituencies they've always been in

In order to argue the claim that only minor modifications are being made, Plenkovic stated that as many as 78 percent of voters, or four fifths of the total number, will remain in the constituencies where they are currently and always have been in. He also stated that based on the proposed changes to the layout of the country's constituencies, the largest deviation from the average number of voters per constituency (364,664) will amount to only 2.2 percent in the Xth constituency, and everything else will simply fall within 2.20 percent.

"These are extremely small deviations, which completely put the new ''architecture of constituencies'' into the legal context of what is currently prescribed, which is plus or minus five percent. So, this is the closest to having practically an equal number of voters per constituency, which, of course, is impossible," he said.

Journalists were naturally waiting to pounce with their lists of valid questions, and one of the most pressing of all is just how it could ever be possible that there are so many voters, because apparently there seems to be more voters than Croatian citizens who can vote.

''The register of voters is formed based on the records of residence and registries located in the ministries. It's a register that changes daily. Elections are conducted based on the list of voters,'' was the simple and quite frankly vague answer, especially given the fact that there have been endless attempts to solve the issue of ''fake residences'' being registered across the country.

One might ask if this sort of voter list is at all credible, and HDZ believes it is:

''We believe that the information in it is credible. I don't want to get into the debate about the population census. We took the voter register here, not the population census. The voter register is the basis for the electoral law,'' stated Plenkovic.

The drama surrounding this topic is ongoing, with individuals from Croatian politics in Istria, Petrinja and even the island of Pag complaining about where they've found themselves after this constituency shakeup of sorts. We're sure that this is a debate that will keep on being revisited and picked apart, as is the norm in the world of Croatian politics.

Croatian economist Damir Novotny says that recent reforms aren't actually reforms at all, and that this sort of wage growth will only encourage inflation

Economist Damir Novotny appeared on N1 television where he commented on the tax reform that Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Finance Minister Marko Primorac presented to the public recently. According to what the government presented on Wednesday, the lowest wages could increase by 40 euros on average. And what about everyone else?

"It's not about reform, and this was also acknowledged by Primorac, who said that it's about changing tax rates," explained Damir Novotny, before adding the following:

"The tax on labour and capital is an inherited model from social democratic countries or the governments of Scandinavian countries. The Republic of Croatia has an average burden of income from labour and capital, lower than, for example, Scandinavian countries. These changes are small and don't deserve so much public uproar, nor do they deserve the amount of bile being spewed up in discussions. This is making it all enter the sphere of political populism. Wages can't increase as a result of changes in the tax system. This would be possible if we were in Ireland and lowered the burden all the way down to five percent, so everyone pays their own contributions if they want. This is more political marketing folklore without any actual economic substance to it."

"The more wages rise, the more inflation will rise"

Novotny added that with this sort of increase in wages, inflation will also increase, and he also mentioned large sums of money "in the grey zone".

"The more wages rise, the more inflation will rise. The Croatian National Bank (CNB) still sees around 18 billion kuna in circulation, which will be exchanged gradually during the year so as not to be declared as income in the grey zone. That would be a characteristic of left-wing governments, but certainly not of HDZ. This all speaks in favour of the fact that Croatia took over the Scandinavian model from back in the 1970s, but this is no longer done. They said that wages are rising to encourage households to spend more. I see a big problem here. The more households have spare money, the higher inflation will be. The recommendations of the European Commission (EC) were published recently, which tells the Croatian Government - don't subsidise energy anymore, that's the wrong direction to go in," he added.

"This may all just be an attack on Zagreb"

When asked if this is an attack on the biggest cities, Novotny answered:

"Perhaps to the City of Zagreb, yes. They'll end up lacking 200 million or so, that's not a little amount, it will create problems for the city. We'll see if they raise income tax rates. I think Zagreb will suffer the most from this. Split is a region without many high incomes, and it's precsiely in that region that we can see the effects of the grey economy."

Minister Marko Primorac says that it would be good if Croatia did have the (previously) much talked about property tax, but that this government won't be the one to introduce it

Minister Marko Primorac was a recent guest on RTL where he spoke about tax changes, salaries and pensions - all of which are extremely hot topics at this moment in time.

Journalist: You yourself said that this enables local politicians to attract voters and influence people more. What if they decide to make a populist move next year, reduce the income tax, but increase the prices of kindergartens? Who will be responsible for this?

Primorac: Every mayor or candidate for mayor or prefect will have slightly greater opportunities than they've had up to now. Until now, they had the possibility to determine the prices of kindergartens... If we're talking about the taxes of local government units, even so far, local units have had the possibility of determining the rates of individual taxes.

When it comes to taxes for holiday homes, they had the option of setting taxes between 5 and 15 kuna per square metre. In the case of consumption tax, they could introduce it from 0 to 3 percent. And what we've done in this way by merging the surtax with the income tax is make it possible for them to have limited autonomy with the income tax as well as for all other local taxes.

"I don't believe that cities will raise their taxes even though they technically could right now''

Journalist: My wallet can't tell one sort of tax from another. If we end up paying the same for everything - what's the point of it all?

Primorac: They could reduce all local taxes they had, abolish them and increase some other services if they wanted to now. They haven't done so, so I don't believe they'll do it in the future either. We've increased the autonomy of local self-government units, introduced more fiscal decentralisation and have provided yet another additional tool in the toolbox of local leaders who will know what to do with it. The central government retains autonomy in determining the range in order to ensure fiscal stability, but also to influence other policies - redistribution or stabilisation in a certain case if necessary.

"Pensions will grow at the pace they need to grow at"

Journalist: There was no mention of pensions. Why is there even tax on pensions if they're the way they are?

Primorac: If we're talking about the first pension pillar - it was the only way to help those who don't fall in the tax bracket. We could only do what we needed to do by relieving the system of contributions for pension insurance. We'll enable an increase in net wages for those who don't pay income tax. Pensions will then grow at the pace they need to grow at.

We have the indexation of pensions, which is carried out every couple of years according to an established formula related to the increase in consumer prices and average wages. In this way, it will be indexed and determined in the future as well. If there's an opportunity for additional increases, just as we did with the increase in the minimum pension, we'll continue to do so. This intervention that we're making in the pension insurance contribution system only concerns current transfers.

"It would be good if we did have property tax"

Journalist: In a study from back in 2020, you wrote that the abolition of taxes would be disastrous for local self-government units if no substitutions were devised. Is this merely a substitution?

Primorac: It's a substitution so that the autonomy of local self-government units is increased - yes. Therefore, they have the possibility to determine the same rate of tax burden as they had before the change through income tax. What goes to their burden in these changes is the increase in the basic personal deduction, which rises to 560 euros. The more it increases, the less income tax local government units have to collect.

Journalist: In the same study, you talked about property tax? Has the time come for that?

Primorac: Property tax is another tool in the toolbox of local leaders and it would be good if it existed. However, it isn't in the programme of this government. It will certainly not be introduced by the end of the mandate of the current government.

For more on Croatian politics, make sure to keep up with our dedicated section. A dedicated Week in Croatian Politics article is also published every Friday.

May the 19th, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've had visits from a Belgian diplomat, the Council of Europe summit in Iceland, flooding issues, ongoing healthcare salary woes and the origin of mysterious threats against the government.

Plenkovic holds a working meeting about the Croatian floods and tells people to go on Google to see how bad it is in Italy

As Index reports, the Karlovac County building played host recently to a working meeting between Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and his ministers, the local community and competent services on the further activities of all components of the homeland security and civil protection system with the aim of helping the population and preventing damage due to rising water levels.

"Huge water levels in several counties, flood defenses, and abnormally high river levels are continuing. Unfortunately, the situation is similar, maybe even worse, in other European countries," said Plenkovic at the beginning of the working meeting, as reported by N1. The PM thanked everyone who participated in flood defense and those who helped other people before noting that these are record water levels.

"Our defense system could maybe be better"

When asked if there could have been a better reaction in certain places, he said: "As far as I know, the River Una was over five metres in Hrvatska Kostajnica. The situation is complex, but efforts have been made. The defense system may be better. That said, it is better than it has been in the past. Look at the bigger picture, go on Google, see what's happening in Italy. These are huge natural disasters, and there was excellent coordination."

He added that there are about 500 households covered by the Red Cross/Crveni kriz: "If someone didn't manage to get help, it doesn't mean that it won't happen and that that help won't arrive. Minister Tomo Medved will go to Sisak because there are problems with the dams there."

"These are very high water levels"

"In the context of spatial planning and the selection of the locations for facilities, we must take into account the risks in certain areas. Croatian waters have a risk map where flooding is likely to occur, so we need an element of self-prevention. We need to work further on retentions. We heard how important natural retentions are which we have in Lonjsko polje, but now the same will need to be done with the Kupa. Care must be taken to insure these facilities. The mayor said that there are locations where people have constructed things, they're risky areas and because of that, insurance companies don't want to provide insurance policies. These are very high water levels. What used to be a once-in-a-hundred-year defense standard is changing. Why do we have these meetings on global climate change? Because changes happen quickly," Plenkovic concluded.

Another meeting has been scheduled following yet another protest about wages in the healthcare sector

Neither the Nurses' and Technicians' Union nor the Independent Union are satisfied after a meeting with the Ministers of Health, Labour and Finance, and have now demanded an increase in their salaries in any way. Ministers have stated that they will find a solution, and a new meeting regarding those demands has been arranged for Monday.

Minister of Health Vili Beros said after the meeting with the trade unions, which he judged to have been constructive, that they agreed today that some things in the past were really not good, that the stability of the system was disrupted by numerous changes to the regulation on coefficients, and that they have to improve on all of that going forward.

The unions are asking the powers that be within the world of Croatian politics for a ten percent salary increase for all employees working within the healthcare system and say that they cannot just keep sitting, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the new law to come into force in 2024.

"In good faith and through concrete talks, I believe that we'll manage to find a solution, and the continuation of these talks will take place on Monday. We aren't going to sit and talk about the specific elements of any would-be wage increases for now, and we'll be looking at the broader issue and what lies ahead of us," repeated the minister, adding that the will of the government to improve things is very much there, given that there were three ministers at the meeting who all want to solve these problems together in the context of the arrival of the new law and different regulations.

When asked if these continued talks are leading to the fact that under the new law, healthcare employees will receive not only a ten percent increase but perhaps a larger one, Beros replied that this possibility exists and that a methodology for calculating future coefficients will be presented to all of the ministries, and union representatives will also participate in those calculations.

When asked if the unions could expect a ten percent salary increase before the aforementioned new law was passed, Beros stated that Finance Minister Marko Primorac said at the meeting that "it's difficult to expect changes in the coefficients as such before the new law is passed", but that there are a number of other elements that are very much available. Minister of Labour Marin Piletic said that the new wage law should come into force on January the 1st, 2024, and it will include new coefficients and the base rate. The law will be referred to the parliamentary procedure in June.

Minister Piletic also stated that after the government session, he intends to invite all representatives of the involved unions to sign the addendum to the Basic Collective Agreement and the Collective Agreement, where after three rounds of negotiations they agreed to increase the amount of compensation for all 235,000 employees in state and public services. They decided to raise the compensation from 199 euros to 300 euros for union members, and to 250 for all other employees.

The President of the Main Council of the Croatian Professional Union of Nurses and Technicians, Anica Prasnjak, clarified that on Monday they will continue to discuss their demands, while today they discussed the issue that led to the situation in which they felt that they had to protest.

"We aren't satisfied, but for now we can't really say anything else until we see what another round of talks brings and whether things will move in a different direction as a result. We can't hang onto anything at the moment except for the next meeting, which will be the crowning moment," Prasnjak added.

The president of the Independent Trade Union, Stjepan Topolnjak, said that he will not and cannot wait for until next year for Croatian politics to act in terms of the introduction of a new salary law, nor can he wait for the rules on new coefficients to come into force.

"We aren't interested in how the government will raise our salaries. We're asking for an increase in our salaries, and when it comes to how that will be done, we'll leave that to the minister and possibly to the prime minister," he said. Topolnjak also confirmed that a full strike is still an option that is very firmly on the table should their demands continue to be kicked into the long grass.

Plenkovic attends the Council of Europe's summit in Iceland

Having experienced war and the attempt to wipe out a country and its identity just thirty years ago, the Republic of Croatia has continued to show solidarity with Ukraine in the wake of Russian aggression. The figures we see in Croatian politics may be a lot of things, but their united and unwavering support for Ukraine ever since the Russian invasion has been firm.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic spoke about Russian aggression against Ukraine at the recently held Council of Europe summit in Iceland. Croatia also officially signed the damage register, a legal instrument that will find ways to compensate Ukraine for the enormous amount of war damage it has suffered at the hands of the Russians, the prime minister said.

"Fundamental values are currently under attack. Freedom is under attack. Democracy is under attack. Russian aggression against Ukraine somehow woke all of us up from the peace that the whole of Europe had enjoyed for decades after the Second World War, as well as the aggression during Milosevic's regime in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, including Croatia," Plenkovic said in an address at the summit meeting of the Council of Europe, an organisation that included Russia until last year.

The heads of state and government of the Council of Europe members adopted the declaration at the end of the summit. "This declaration has one main message - that we're united around common values and that we're all united in solidarity and support for Ukraine," Plenkovic told reporters after the summit.

It's worth noting that the Republic of Croatia became a full member of the Council of Europe on November the 6th, 1996, not long after Yugoslavia collapsed and it gained its independence as a nation. At the summit, Plenkovic recalled the fact that he was part of the team that worked on Croatia's entry into the Council of Europe back in the mid 1990s.

Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Gordan Grlic-Radman meets with his Belgian counterpart, Hadja Lahbib, in Zagreb

After having recently flown on a commercial flight to the British capital for the coronation of King Charles III earlier this month following Zoran Milanovic's trip to London being cancelled due to a government plane issue, he spent this week busy welcoming a Belgian diplomat.

His counterpart, Hadja Lahbib, made a visit to the Croatian capital this week, and they spent Monday in Zagreb touching on the importance of strengthening Croatian-Belgian bilateral relations in view of the current situation in Europe, and also discussed multiple mutual challenges such as the war in Ukraine and its ongoing negative economic consequences. The ministers emphasised the importance of maintaining contacts between Croatia and Belgium in order to progress at the EU level, as well as to jointly find solutions to current challenges such as decarbonisation. Lahbib also met with PM Andrej Plenkovic.

Since Belgium will preside over the EU Council from January next year, the pair from the spheres of Belgian and Croatian politics also talked about the Schengen area, of which Croatia became a part on the first day of this year, the suppression of illegal migration, the situation in the Western Balkans and the future of the enlargement process as well as the future of the European Union itself.

Grlic-Radman emphasised the importance of unity in decisions that will ensure "solidarity and commitment on the part of EU member states", according to the press release of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.

The death threats made to Plenkovic and his government ministers which made headlines last week appear to have come from abroad

Most of us have complaints, but there are those who will take it a hundred steps further in their dislike for those in Croatian politics, and death threats aren't that uncommon of an issue. The powers that be within the Croatian police (MUP) recently that they are continuing to conduct a criminal investigation into the threats made against Plenkovic and numerous government ministers last week "with the aim of determining all of the circumstances and identifying those responsible.''

In the police's press release, they stated that on Friday morning, the Zagreb Police Department "received a report from an unknown person who expressed threats towards the Prime Minister and members of the Government of the Republic of Croatia".

In view of the received report, i.e. the seriousness of the threats, additional police forces were dispatched and deployed to St. Mark's Square (Markov trg). RTL Danas/Today has since learned that the threat was made by a man by phone from abroad. Government spokesman Marko Milic also confirmed earlier that the police came to the headquarters of the Croatian Government because of threats to kill the prime minister and his ministers.

Plenkovic has since touched on the issue, noting that this isn't the first time he and his government have received such threats, and that most of them don't end up getting media attention.

For more on Croatian politics, make sure to keep up with our dedicated section. A dedicated Week in Croatian Politics article is also published every Friday.

May the 12th, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've had threats made to Plenkovic and the government, demands from nurses, technicians and other hospital staff for an increase in their wages and better working conditions, broken planes and expensive dresses.

We're kicking off this week in Croatian with a bang as threats were made to the government and the police turned up at Banski dvori

As Index reports, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said today (May the 12th) that a threat was made to him and members of the government this morning, and added that police officers are now present in front of Banski dvori, according to Dnevnik.hr.

"The threat is still present and a police unit is currently standing in front of Banski dvori because this morning there was a threat made against me and members of the government. It happens all the time", Plenkovic said in a statement to the media down in Dubrovnik, where he arrived on the occasion of the Day of Dubrovnik-Neretva County.

"There was a terrorist attack three years ago"

He said the above while commenting on today's annual SOA report, about which he said: "We had discussions at the Committee for National Security given that there was a terrorist attack almost three years ago, it could be the case that someone would want to carry out a terrorist act against the Prime Minister, that is, against me".

A special challenge is the return of ISIL fighters and their families from captivity in Syria to neighbouring countries. SOA pointed out that in some countries of the Western Balkans, Salafi jihadist parajams are still active, and they are led by charismatic religious preachers.

As has been the case over more recent years, the primary terrorist threat in Europe continues to be radicalised individuals inspired by jihadist ideology. These are independent attackers, so-called lone wolves, whose actions are unpredictable. They typically have no direct contact with any terrorist organisations, but are inspired by calls from terrorist organisations to commit a terrorist act, SOA revealed.

"Extremism in Croatia has no foothold or public support"

Despite the attack on St. Mark's Square back in 2020, Croatia is still a society in which extremism on any basis - religious, ideological or national - doesn't have a significant foothold, nor does it have public support, and thus no strength or potential to destabilise national security, the SOA report stated.

However, as they pointed out, SOA has detected attempts by individuals with extremist and militant attitudes to properly organise their followers, with the intention of implementing military training and the procurement of weapons, all with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the democratic constitutional order.

"That young man carried out the shooting in 2020 because of the atmosphere in which he grew up. Someone gave him a weapon, someone taught him to shoot and someone provoked in him that exact moment, which is the most important factor. We were lucky that he unfortunately didn't succeed in carrying out his intentions,'' the PM said.

What did SOA announce today in its annual report?

As far as terrorism in Croatia is concerned, SOA estimated in their annual report published today that the threat of organised attacks by terrorist groups here in Croatia is still considered low, but the possibility of a terrorist attack being carried out, primarily by independent attackers, can never be entirely ruled out.

President Zoran Milanovic meets with Bosnia and Herzegovina's Presidency Member Denis Becirovic

Zoran Milanovic recently met with Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denis Becirovic in Zagreb. The Bosniak member of the BiH presidency, Denis Becirovic, has been officially visiting Croatia, during which he will also meet with Plenkovic.

After the bilateral meeting of Milanovic and Becirovic with their accompanying delegations was held, statements to the media followed.

"I'm pleased that after a long break, we're now having talks at the highest level. The talks were in Croatia's interest because I represent Croatia, and the interest of this country is for Bosnia and Herzegovina to be spatially stable and for it to become an EU member state. I give my special support to the integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina,'' said Milanovic.

"It's time to relax and improve our relations and to build bridges of friendship," said Becirovic, adding that the two countries generally cooperate with each other very well and that talks must be focused on solving any issues that do remain between the two neighbouring nations.

"Dodik is a security threat, he must be stopped''

Becirovic called the controversial Dodik a security threat. "He's a security threat, he must be stopped in his politics, it's time for everyone to understand that," he said and added that he believes better days are ahead in the cooperation between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was followed by questions from journalists. The first question was about the gas pipeline.

"I have no problem supporting all of the development projects, and some people must understand that it's in their interest that we regulate that an acceptable way and in the way that the EU asks of us. There are clear directives about this so we do need to talk about it. A policy of blackmail isn't a policy that can bring good," said Becirovic.

Spain's Queen Letizia turned heads with a dress which cost almost 800 euros during her recent visit to Zagreb

Queen Letizia arrived in Zagreb recently on the occasion of the Summit of spouses of European leaders on the prevention of childhood obesity. She was hosted by Sanja Music Milanovic, the wife of Zoran Milanovic.

Queen Letizia, often referred to as one of best-dressed women in the world, wore a sky blue dress made by the Spanish designer Maria Barragan (which totalled 775 euros), which she combined with snake pattern heels from the Carolina Herrera brand. According to the Spanish media, she also wore diamond earrings.

Sanja Music Milanovic welcomed her in a purple suit with a modern cut, which she combined with black heels.

One of the best dressed women in the world arrives in Zagreb

As noted above, Queen Letizia is considered one of the greatest fashion icons in the entire world. Vanity Fair ranked her in the top ten best-dressed women on Earth, and many foreign media portals and papers regularly write about her elegant style, but also her simple and affordable fashion choices (we're not sure 800 euro dresses and diamond earrings are exactly affordable, but there we go). Otherwise, she can often be seen wearing clothes from Zara, a popular Spanish brand which has shops and is popular across Europe.

Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman attended the coronation of King Charles III in London, and not Zoran Milanovic

A truly historic event took place recently, with the coronation of King Charles III following seventy long years of his mother's reign as queen. Queen Elizabeth sadly passed away back in September 2022, and since then, preparations have been underway in Britain for the crowning of her son. 

As statesmen and women of the world descended on the British capital for the coronation, there was no sight of President Zoran Milanovic, with Gordan Grlic-Radman attending the historic event instead. Many raised their eyebrows when the news broke that President Zoran Milanovic and his wife weren't going to attend the coronation of King Charles III, but there were no reasons within British or Croatian politics for it. The plane that was going to be used to transport to pair to London simply broke. Instead, Foreign and European Affairs Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman travelled using a commercial plane.

As was soon learned from the Croatian Government, the Directorate for the Use of Official Aircraft informed the Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia about the failure of the official aircraft during a technical flight. It was then stated from the government that instead of President Milanovic, Gordan Grlic-Radman would head over to London on a regular commercial flight.

It was explained that their pilots performed a technical flight to test one of the aircraft's systems, noting that the test was failed and the plane was returned to the airport. The replacement part was then ordered from the manufacturer. President Milanovic decided to remain at home and swapped London for the Istrian city of Pula, which was celebrating its City Day.

The previously announced protest of healthcare professionals who are not doctors and hospital employees took place, with their wages, conditions, and Health Minister Vili Beros in their sights

Around 1000 nurses, technicians and non-medical staff from all parts of Croatia protested on Thursday at Zrinjevac (Zagreb), demanding higher wages and better working conditions, with the message that they've been devalued and cannot continue to sit twiddling their thumbs and waiting for announced changes in 2024.

"The new coefficients and pay grades will be applied only from February 2024, we can't wait until then," said Stjepan Topolnjak, president of the Independent Union of Health and Social Welfare.

At the protest, which lasted about an hour and a half, he warned that cleaners, laundry workers and auxiliary workers work for minimum wage, and nurses with a secondary vocational education for only 50 euros above the minimum wage.

"A nurse in primary care has a salary of 700 euros, and in hospitals that goes up to 900 euros. Is that enough of a salary for the work they do?!" asked Topolnjak, greeted by shouts from protesters: "We're healthcare too!" "Give us back our rights and our dignity!", "Saving on nurses is like saving on the foundations of a house, one day everything will collapse!" and "Nurses deserve more!!

"The system does not need ministers, but it does need workers"

The president of the Croatian Professional Union of Nurses and Technicians, Brankica Grguric, told Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who has thus far refused to accept them, that they don't need him, adding that his attitude towards them is shameful.

"The system does not need ministers, but it does need workers, cooks, midwives, nurses and physiotherapists," said Grguric.

The president of the Croatian Chamber of Nurses, Mario Gazic, came out to provide support with the message that the protest at Zrinjevac should only be the beginning of further actions.

"Nurses and non-medical staff deserve the same respect as doctors get"

The president of the Association of Independent Trade Unions of Croatia, Mladen Novosel, also spoke at the protest, saying that nurses and other staff deserve the same respect as the prime minister and the health minister showed to doctors.

"They were put in a more favourable position compared to you," Novosel pointed out to the protesters present.

The president of the Independent Croatian Trade Unions (NHS) Kresimir Sever warned that Croatian healthcare is in an unwell state, and that the cure is in the hands of the prime minister and Vili Beros.

"You were forced out onto the steets to protest because you aren't being respected equally, one group is accepted and the other is invited to collective bargaining," said Sever.

The protestors were also supported by Zeljko Stipic from the Preporod educational union and Sanja Sprem, the president of the Croatian Teachers' Union.

Trade unionists have claimed that the prime minister had opened a "Pandora's box" by increasing doctors' salaries but choosing to ignore others.

''This is the beginning of a story that will succeed,'' said Stipic, while Anica Prasnjak from the Nurses' Union said that "there is no giving up".

Prasnjak also warned that starting on May the 25th, she will begin preparations for a "serious strike" if the government and actors in Croatian politics continue to willfully ignore their demands.

For more on Croatian politics, make sure to keep up with our dedicated section. A dedicated Week in Croatian Politics article is also published every Friday.

May the 5th, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've had a visit from the Serbian Prime Minister and from the Albanian President, a desire for a new Labour Law with more flexibility, protests from healthcare staff and non-healthcare staff employed in hospitals for more recognition (and more money) for their work, and more.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic visits Zagreb

As Index reports, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic recently received Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic at Banski dvori, as HRT reported. At the aforementioned cabinet meeting, the Croatian Prime Minister was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Anja Simpraga, while the Serbian Prime Minister was accompanied by Minister for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue Tomislav Zigmanov. The meeting was then followed by the fourth Great Assembly, organised by the Serbian National Council in Zagreb.

The SNV Grand Assembly gathered together numerous elected councilors and representatives of the Serbian national minority in Croatia from over 150 municipalities, cities and counties, over a thousand and a half of them to be more precise. In addition, the representatives of all relevant organisations of the Serbian community in Croatia and minority and human rights protection institutions were also present.

Brnabic spoke of the ''deep wounds'' left after the Homeland War and owing to historically tense Croatian-Serbian relations. She stated that relations between the two countries - one of which is an EU member state, a Eurozone country and part of the Schengen zone - and one which isn't any of the above, continue to be burdened by a multitude of difficult questions and a lack of trust. Despite that, significant progress is going to be made in that regard this year, according to her. 

Croatian Employers want Labour Law amendments and sit down to talk with Labour Minister Marin Piletic

The issues surrounding the increasing number of foreign (non-EU) workers arriving in Croatia coupled with Croatia's ongoing problems with a demographic crisis, an aging population and the mentality of not wanting to work has seen members of the Croatian Employers' Association (HUP) sit down with the labour minister.

Igor Skrgatic of HUP has clearly stated that previous amendments to the Labour Law have been unsatisfactory to employers and that much more flexibility is needed, as is a proper immigration strategy from MUP. Many deem the influx of foreign workers from non EU countries to be harmful to the Croatian workforce who have chosen to remain in the country, and that something needs to be done to prevent problems from spiralling out of control. More can be read about the meeting with Minister Marin Piletic here.

Croatian healthcare professionals protest once again, this time citing their dissatisfaction with Health Minister Vili Beros and their salaries

It hasn't been long since the last protest of healthcare professionals, primarily doctors, who stated their lack of satisfaction with current working conditions, salaries and expectations. Health Minister Vili Beros made a rather scandalous statement which totally missed the mark by claiming that ''most people protesting earn more than he does''. The fact that the Croatian healthcare system is in crisis is far from new information to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock, and most doctors protesting are just as concerned with the fact that patients are having to suffer these shortcomings just as much as they are.

Healthcare professionals and other employees from Dubrava Hospital (Zagreb) are the latest to protest, this time turning most of their attention on Beros himself, and looking more deeply at the state of wages.

The half-hour protest held on Wednesday demanded that the coefficients for medical workers in the public healthcare system who aren't doctors be increased by 10 percent.

"We'd like to express ourdissatisfaction with the behavioyr of Minister Vili Beros and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic towards those employees who aren't covered by the government decree. We're asking for a minimum 10 percent increase in the coefficients for all other healthcare workers who aren't doctors," said the president of the Independent Union of Health and Social Welfare of Croatia, Stjepan Topolnjak. He also stated that non-healthcare personnel in the system, from administrative workers to kitchen staff deserve "much higher wages than they currently take home for doing their jobs".

The protest in front of Dubrava Hospital on Wednesday was part of a wave of protests organised by the Croatian Professional Union of Nurses and Technicians (HSSMS-MT) and SSZSSH. The current level of dissatisfaction is caused by unequal increases in the coefficients in the healthcare system, Ivana Suton from the nurses' union pointed out, adding that last week the government increased the coefficient for doctors by 10 percent, while for others it was increased by just 3 to 5.4 percent.

"We consider an increase in the coefficient of 3 to 5 percent to be degrading," Suton pointed out. She stated that nurses, of whom there are more than 30,000 in the Croatian healthcare system, make up 47 percent of the total number of healthcare staff. "The work and contribution of nurses and technicians continues to go unrecognised, and it's unacceptable for nurses and technicians when differences in the healthcare system like this are created," she said. Ana Cudina also addressed the crowd present and said that healthcare and non-healthcare personnel are both seeking dignity and equality.

"The unions have been warning about deficiencies in the healthcare system for years now, they've demanded an increase in wages for all employees, appropriate working conditions for all, and above all 0 respect for the collective agreement," she told the crowd, adding that one group cannot be in a more favourable position than the others.

Another protest of healthcare (not doctors) and non healthcare workers has been announced for May the 12th, 2023.

Plenkovic claims that his government's aim is to increase wages

PM Andrej Plenkovic recently reiterated that the goal of the announced tax reform is tax relief for the most vulnerable and an increase in peoples' net salaries. "The idea is to financially relieve the most vulnerable among us, those who have the lowest salaries, and in this way we'll also increase the net salaries people take home with them," Plenkovic said after the recent session of the wider HDZ Presidency.

Once the package is completed, the first reading in parliament will take place before the summer break, and the second reading will take place in autumn in order for it all to come into effect on January the 1st, 2024, he announced. He noted that the government relieved both the public and the economy in several rounds of tax reforms by more than 11 billion kuna, as well as that the revenues of counties, cities and municipalities have increased by a total of 11 billion kuna since 2017.

He also emphasised the drop in the inflation rate, the reduction of the share of public debt in GDP, the upward revision of growth projections for this year, the surplus in the state budget for 2022, the maintenance of the investment credit rating, the growth of average wages to 1,100 euros net, and so on.

In response to the claim from the opposition that it was all a mere a pre-election move, Plenkovic replied that their entire rhetoric has been reduced to this for a year. "That theory is deeply ridiculous, especially when you see the consistency of our policies in terms of tax relief and in strengthening the fiscal and functional decentralisation of local self-government units," he said, adding that this narrative simply does not hold water.

At the beginning of June, Plenkovic has announced a large meeting with Croatian county prefects and expressed his belief that in the end they will all support legal changes that will enable higher salaries.

"It's important for us that the net salary increases, that's our goal," Plenkovic said.

"We want to reduce the workload and raise average wages. They've grown by 48 percent since back in 2016, so we'll have a dialogue, we'll hold a meeting with the county prefects. It will take place at the beginning of June. Everything will be specified and I believe that in the end everyone will support the legal changes that will provide people with higher wages," Plenkovic said.

The Albanian president pays a visit to Croatia

President Zoran Milanovic and his wife Sanja Music Milanovic recently welcomed the President of Albania Bajram Begaj and his wife Armanda Begaj to Zagreb.

For this occasion, the first lady of Croatia chose a fashion combination in the colours of the Albanian flag - a red shirt and jacket and black trousers, while Armanda arrived in Zagreb in a dark blue suit.

After meeting at Pantovcak, Sanja and Armanda visited the Oton Ivekovic exhibition, a retrospective at the Klovicevi dvori gallery with the professional guidance of the author of the exhibition. There, the first ladies readily posed for photographers.

Otherwise, Zoran Milanovic emphasised that the friendship between Croatia and Albania is "now a deeply established fact", while Begaj said that the relations between Albanians and Croats are "traditionally of high quality and friendly" and at a "historical maximum".

For more on Croatian politics, make sure to keep up with our dedicated section. A dedicated Week in Croatian Politics article is also published every Friday.

April the 28th, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've had talks about everything from reforms to petrol prices, inflation and wages, to popularity contests and a decreasing number of undecided voters.

Plenkovic talks reforms, Ukrainian soldiers being treated for injuries in Croatia, and more

As Index reports, the latest government session was held yesterday, and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic addressed the public at the beginning.

In the introductory part of the session, the Prime Minister referred to current events, recalling the meeting with the Secretary General of the OECD Mathias Cormann, and its overall importance. He also singled out his recent visit to Osijek, where a large economic centre was opened, representing an investment of 10 million euros. 

"Yesterday, those from Ukraine who have been wounded arrived in Croatia, they've all been being taken care of, and I'd like to wish them a steady recovery," he said.

"A government meeting was held and as a result, petrol and diesel became cheaper. Without government measures, fuel would be twenty cents per litre more expensive," he added.

"We've now adoptedthe national reform programme. We have 56 permanent measures, and some more measures have been added in various areas for good measure. The adoption of the stability programme document is particularly important. The main backbone of economic policy in the coming period will be the responsible management of public finances. We've gained credibility. The goal is to increase the growth of the economy, to be on the trail of two major directions - climate policy and digital transformation," he said, and when discussing the country's fiscal policy, he added that he would concentrate on reducing the public debt.

"Our projections for the medium-term period are realistic. Last year we achieved growth of 6.3 percent and provided numerous aid packages to members of the public. We gave more than 6 billion euros in aid to the public and the economy. Due to excess income at the local community level, we achieved a budget surplus of 4 percent of GDP - and we reduced public debt last year as well," he added.

"Croatia is the only country that has had its credit rating raised by all three agencies since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The next period will be marked by uncertainty, but we can realistically expect the Croatian economy to grow by 2.2 percent this year. We can predict this based on the excellent results in tourism so far and this will be a record year. As for the stability pact, we've met all the criteria. As for inflation, we expect a slowdown to 6.6 percent, and in the coming years we expect a significant slowdown to previous levels."

Inflation and wage increases (or a lack of) were discussed on Otvoreno by politicians from across the spectrum, and the CNB's deputy governor, Sandra Svaljek

When will price growth in Croatia stop? Is inflation imported or is it the result of domestic issues? Why does the CNB governor claim that salaries in Croatia today are growing faster than inflation is rising? Whose wages are rising and by how much, and who is on the verge of poverty? How can protect the standards the public is used to? All of the above was discussed on a recent episode of HRT's Otvoreno (Open). The present guests were Sandra Bencic (Mozemo!/We Can!), Marko Pavic (HDZ), Branko Grcic (SDP) and the deputy governor of the Croatian National Bank (CNB) Sandra Svaljek.

Bencic: Salaries are now lower in real terms than they have been back during previous years

Sandra Bencic (Mozemo) said that recently in the Croatian Parliament, they criticised CNB Governor Boris Vujcic for the lack of timely information from the CNB last autumn.

"Recently, at an international gathering, the governor presented data that clearly proved that a significant part of the inflation we have here in Croatia is driven by the growth of margins, and that the growth of margins in that share of total inflation has 5.1 points, while wage growth stands at 1.5. This shows that the margins have grown a lot more quickly and contributed much more to overall inflation than wage growth has."

"On the contrary, we know that the growth of wages didn't follow inflation and that they fell in real terms back in 2022. This means that if the amount increased nominally, you could buy less than you could before. Even today, wages are lower in real terms than they were in previous years,'' she added.

"What we asked at the press conference is that if margins drive inflation the most in Croatia and if the fact is that more than 8% of the 12% inflation we had is domestic inflation, not imported inflation, then the measures to suppress inflation must be different. In such a case, the issue of tax on extra profits cannot be limited to the profits made in 2022, but now we have to make changes to the law on extra profit to signal to those who will make that extra profit that they will be taxed on it. But that can't be implemented across all sectors equally as it was back in 2022, but instead it should be implemented on those sectors that increased their margins the most, and thus contributed the most to inflation, and it seems that these are the trade and accommodation sectors," Bencic pointed out.

Pavic: Croatia has avoided a technical recession and we expect a clear economic momentum

Marko Pavic (HDZ) said that while appearing on Otvoreno, they had the opportunity, among other things, to discuss the governor's report in parliament, as well as the results of the government's policy in curbing inflation.

"What should definitely be pointed out is that the government has introduced four packages so far, the last of which is worth 1.7 billion euros. The goal was to reduce energy prices, I'd like to remind you that we have electricity and gas prices 2 to 3 times cheaper than the market price, to protect people from inflation and to prevent a social fracture for those who are the most vulnerable, primarily pensioners, unemployed people, young people and children, all of whom are vulnerable groups in our society," Pavic said.

"This has led to good results, inflation has been slowing down over the last four months and according to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the average salary has exceeded to 1,106 euros. Over the last 6 years, accumulated inflation has stood at 16.4%, of which 10.1% was last year, but salaries have grown by 30%, pensions by 28%, and the minimum wage by almost 70%. Croatia has avoided a technical recession and we expect a clear economic momentum," Pavic pointed out.

"As for the law on extra profit, we passed it precisely because of price manipulations. It brought several hundred million euros back into the state budget," he added.

Grcic: Employees are being neglected in terms of the distribution of higher GDP

Branko Grcic (SDP) said that he would refer back to the data that Pavic is talking about, which is full of illogicality.

"Here in this study, six months ago I warned people, about a radical change in distribution in Croatia. This has now been shown by the data and analysts from other countries in our environment. You have a situation where your GDP grew by over 6% in real terms last year. At the same time, you have a real decline in terms of salaries, and we don't agree with that. The data clearly shows that the employees themselves were neglected in that distribution and that the higher GDP that was actually achieved went somewhere else.

That's what I said 6 months ago here, when not many people were talking about it. In fact, there's nowhere to go but to the two sources that make up the GDP structure. These are government revenues (taxes and contributions) and profit. It's clear that if the state has roughly followed the GDP, those who create profits have profited. "Profit is not the shameful thing, the shameful thing is that some people in Croatia simply cannot live on their incomes, whether they're salaries or pensions," said Grcic.

"The data for the six years that Pavic is talking about is very clear. From the government's presentation, which was released to the public a few weeks ago, it's clear that GDP has grown by 25% in real terms over the last six years, while wages have only increased by 15% and pensions by only 6.7%. I'm talking about reliable data from the government's presentation. So you're actually mixing nominal categories with real categories," Grcic emphasised.

"That's the key problem facing Croatia. It has so happened that many people have used inflation to pump their own profits. If that profit will go into investments tomorrow, that's good. If that profit will be repatriated, if it will leave Croatia, if it will be enjoyed some foreign owner who has a company in Croatia, and not by the Croatian people, then this is a problem.'' Grcic concluded.

The latest Crobarometer survey reveals that HDZ is still the favourite party, and that President Zoran Milanovic (SDP) is seen in the most positive light

As Index reports, the Crobarometer monthly survey for April by Dnevnik Nova TV has now been published. The research results reflect the period of the end of the previous month and the first half of the current month.

The Crobarometer results for April shows that inflation, i.e. the rise in the prices of certain products and services, remains an important topic in the public space and in the everyday life of the general public. In addition, healthcare remains in sharp focus. The justice sector was also partly in the public's focus with the announcement of changes in how it functions. With Easter and the first major arrival of tourists out of the way, topics related to tourism have now, in their seasonal pattern, become reborn. Optimism increased slightly in April and is at a similar level as it was back at the end of last year and in January this year.

HDZ still has over 30 percent of public support as a party

The survey shows that HDZ has firmly consolidated its support and it hasn't fallen below thirty percent. It remained very much the same throughout the month of April, and it currently enjoys 30.9 percent support. That said, seems that the SDP is also somewhat cautiously recovering. SDP's level public support stands at at 13.6 percent, 1.5 percentage points more than last month, and, what is even more important for that party, is that their rating has been slowly growing for the third month in a row now.

In third place is the Mozemo! (We Can!) party with 8.8 percent, with a similar growth and trend as SDP. The fourth is Most (Bridge) with 8.7 percent support, also recording a positive trend, while in fifth place sits Domovinski pokret (Homeland Movement) with a slightly negative trend and a mere 6 percent support.

The parties that haven't even crossed the electoral threshold and enjoy more than 1 percent of support are IDS, Centar, Blok imirovljeni zažene, HNS and HSU. All the others, including parliamentary parties such as the Social Democrats, HSLS or Sovereignists, have less than 1 percent of recorded public support.

There's been a visible decline in the number of undecided voters

The secret of the growth of the aforementioned parties, it seems, is the decline in the number of undecided voters. Although they're still the second political force in the country, that number is decreasing and now 17 percent of respondents who would certainly or probably go to the polls don't know who they'd choose to vote for. Just one month earlier, that number stood at a concerning 19.2 percent.

It also seems that the parties of the left and centre left, SDP and Mozemo, grabbed the most people from that pool over the last month, which indicates the only way in which one can try to counter HDZ is to consolidate their base and seek space among the undecided.

As for how many people would go to the polls if they were held today, judging by the respondents, the turnout would be decent: 68 percent of them would definitely or very likely go to the polls to vote. 27 percent of them would certainly or probably boycott the elections, while five percent of those surveyed had no opinion on it whatsoever.

Which politicians are the most popular?

The public perceives President Zoran Milanovic in the most positive light, despite his bizarre ''politically damaging'' statements and somewhat odd behaviour at times. In second place this month is Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic, followed by Bozo Petrov, in fourth place is Ivan Penava and in fifth is Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

Unsurprisingly, the public has the most negative impression of Milorad Pupovac, followed by Gordan Jandrokovic and Zlatko Hasanbegovic in joint second place, and Prime Minister Plenkovic and Hrvoje Zekanovic tied for third place. If you look at the net ratio of negative to positive experiences, Tomislav Tomasevic is the best, second place is shared by Bozo Petrov and Ivica Puljak, fourth is Ivan Penava, and fifth is President Milanovic.

Support for both President Milanovic (SDP) and Plenkovic's government (HDZ) is growing

After his support fell for four months in a row, Milanovic has successfully managed to reverse that trend. Namely, 56 percent of respondents who don't support his work decreased to 53 percent, while the number of those who support him increased from 36 to 38 percent.

There has also been a change in the trend regarding support for the work of the government itself. After a slight but constant three-month increase in the number of respondents who claimed not to support the moves made by the government, there's also been a change. The number of such people decreased from 65 down to 61 percent, while the number of those who support the work of the government increased from 28 to 30 percent.

Labour Minister Marin Piletic was a guest of Romano Bolkovic's popular 1 on 1 (jedan na jedan) show, where he claimed that the Croatian labour market is becoming more and more interesting

Labour Minister Marin Piletic was a recent guest of Roman Bolkovic's show "1 on 1" on HRT, where he spike about the dynamics of unemployment and employment across the country. Minister Marin Piletic also presented the data he had on the number of residence and work permits issued to foreign workers.

"With regard to the legal changes from 2021, in 2022 we had a record number of foreign workers in Croatia, more than 124,000 of them received a permit to stay and work here legally," he said, adding that it's still the case that the most foreign workers in Croatia mostly come from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia and Nepal.

According to Piletic, the fact that Croatia has reached the figure of 124,000 foreign workers in Croatia from the quota system is in favour of the fact that Croatia is becoming an interesting labour market.

''We're aware of all the challenges we're dealing with, with the number of people who have temporarily or permanently left the country following liberalisation and the opening of the EU's doors to Croatia, and based on the demands of employers, but also the real needs of the labour market, it was possible for 124,000 foreign workers to find happiness in Croatia. In 2023, we've had more than 40,000 requests for the issuance of permits for residence and work in Croatia,'' he stated when discussing the current data.

When asked how Croatia might work harder to try and retain the best quality people, in whom the most was invested through education, Piletic answered: "Only with an adequate price offered to them for their work. Since 2016, the average salary in Croatia has been growing rapidly," pointed out Piletic.

Negotiations with trade unions

''The average net salary in Croatia is now 1,106 euros, but the government is continuing to do everything it can to make the price of labour higher. Among other things, we reopened collective negotiations with representative unions,'' said the minister, noting that last year, the base increased twice and that on April the 1st of this year, in accordance with the agreement and the collective agreement, the base rate increased by two percent. He added that negotiations will continue after the summer tourist season is over, when the possibility will open again that the price of labour, through the increase of the base, will be higher.

For more on Croatian politics, make sure to keep up with our dedicated section. A dedicated Week in Croatian Politics article is also published every Friday.

April the 21st, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've seen HDZ still being chosen as the favourite on the political scene, Croatia's WWII past has been revisited once again, and two big names from the OECD and the EU have paid visits to Zagreb.

A new survey has revealed that HDZ is still the favourite among voters, for some reason

As Index reports, just how much the constant turbulence within the weird world of Croatian politics really affects the popularity of the main actors on the ''stage'' was checked in HRT's recently carried out HRating. This monthly survey included 1,100 respondents, with the largest possible error being +/- 3.54%, and the reliability standing at 95%. This data was collected from April the 14th to the 18th, 2023.

No event or situation has yet appeared within Croatian politics that would quicken the pulse of the Croatian voter and change their long standing political sympathies. Remarkable, I know. The survey proves that - the months go by, the surveys are taken, but everything remains the same. This "same" means that HDZ is still somehow the favourite of the Croatian voter. Followed by... you guessed it! SDP.

Along with HDZ and SDP, only three other parties managed to cross the electoral threshold

The strongest among them - Mozemo! (We Can!), is close to 10%. It is followed by Most (Bridge) with the support of 9% of the country's voters. Domovinski pokret (Homeland Movement) concludes this group of five safe parliamentary parties. This month it is at 6%. From the "powerless" crowd for whom the parliamentary mandate should be just a fiction, the party headed by the mayor of Split jumps out - and Centar (Centre) is currently at 3.4% and its rating is currently stable.

All the others, and there are still 13 of them in the survey, may as well not even really exist. They stand little to zero chances of making it into any sort of powerful political position in Croatia as a single constituency unless some big changes occur. These are: HSS and Radnicka fronta (Workers' front) which tie in terms of their voter support, followed by Fokus (Focus) and Hrvatski suverinisti (Croatian sovereignists).

At a recently held government session, Plenkovic spoke about Jasenovac and claims that the behaviour of some MPs isn't acceptable

At the most recently held session of the Croatian Government, the decision on granting prior consent and the decision on granting a state guarantee for long term credit to the company Hrvatske ceste/Croatian roads were on the agenda. That consent and credit would be given in order order to finance ongoing projects and the company's business plan this year. The opening speech at the session was delivered by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

"The Ston ring road is very well made, it's an extremely valuable strategic project for Croatia," he began, before also referring to the latest assessment by the Fitch agency, which confirmed Croatia's BBB+ rating. "They recognise the direction we're going in, as well as the reform efforts and resistance to the crisis we've shown. We can also see that our trend is going better than planned, and that inflation is decreasing," Plenkovic said, adding that OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann had paid a recent visit to the country.

"This is an organisation that has very, very high standards, both in combating corruption and in numerous sectors, so we'll further stimulate our reform process with activities related to the OECD. For us, it's the last step for Croatia's international positioning," Plenkovic added.

The Prime Minister condemned some opposition MPs and their apparently "unacceptable" behaviour

He referred to the recent chaos in parliament which unfolded during the debate on amendments to the law on offenses against public order and peace. To quickly remind you, it was especially stormy when the discussion started about the greeting "Za dom spremni'' (Ready for the homeland), which is generally deemed an "Ustasa" phrase with Nazi connotations and for which an individual could be fined up to 4000 euros for using. Of course, the history behind that phrase is deeper than just "It was used during the brief period of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and so it must be banned'' but we won't get into the ins and outs of that (or any connotations with the Homeland War) in this article.

"We consider the performances and statements of individual members of parliament yesterday to be inappropriate, and we believe that this is unacceptable, especially the aggressive approach that was directed towards the president of the parliament (Goran Jandrokovic)," said Plenkovic.

This Sunday, a joint commemoration will be held at the location where the Jasenovac concentration camp stood, where representatives of Jewish municipalities will also be present, who in previous years refused to come because they were dissatisfied with the government's attitude towards Croatia's position during WWII and the Ustasa regime in general.

"We're glad that this year, the Council of the Jewish Municipality of Zagreb and the Coordination of Jewish Municipalities in Croatia will also respond to the invitation of the Director of the Public Institution of the Jasenovac Memorial Area to participate in the commemoration,'' concluded Plenkovic.

Is the new Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime's new boss going to be the woman put ex PM Ivo Sanader behind bars?

Zeljka Mostecak, the deputy chief state attorney, has been mentioned as a potential new director of the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) after the departure of Vanja Marusic, reports Dnevnik.hr.

To be clear, we're talking about a female prosecutor who has many years of experience under her belt and who was the main prosecutor in some of the most famous cases related to corruption in independent Croatia. Mostecak was, it should be mentioned, the main prosecutor in the very well known Fimi Media affair, a multi-year proceeding that led to the final conviction of former PM Ivo Sanader (HDZ) and seeing him banged up.

It should also be noted that HDZ itself was actually convicted in that case, but as a legal entity. For that case, Mostecak received the prestigious state attorney's award. Mostecak was also a prosecutor in a series of cases arising from the Fima Media affair, including the HAC affair. Before Mostecak worked at DORH, she was the main prosecutor in the HAC-Remorker affair. Former HDZ Minister of Transport and Mayor of Zadar Bozidar Kalmeta was also accused of wrongdoing in that affair.

Kalmeta was acquitted of sharing over 15 million kuna and 850,000 euros from road maintenance and construction companies with his associates. Three of Kalmeta's co-accused were found guilty.

The former minister was also acquitted of part of the indictment according to which he damaged the Ministry of Transport for 600,000 kuna by ordering the promotional film "The Transport Renaissance of Croatia" from the marketing agency Fimi Media. The company was tried for filling HDZ's ''black fund'' with money from various state companies and institutions.

The Commissioner for Internal Market of the European Union, Thierry Breton, visits Zagreb

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic received the Commissioner for the EU's Internal Market, Thierry Breton, in Zagreb this week. The pair discussed the state and ongoing development of the Croatian economy, the consequences of Russian aggression against Ukraine on the supply of energy sources across Europe, and the strengthening of the European defense industry as a whole.

Plenkovic explained to Breton that the Croatian economy is fully expected to grow more rapidly in 2023 than the initial expectations of the government, the European Commission and other international organisations initially predicted. They both also emphasised the need for continued military aid to Ukraine. The Prime Minister made sure to bring it up to the commissioner that Croatia offers the potential of energy support to its neighbouring countries by expanding the LNG terminal on Krk from 2.9 to 6.1 billion cubic metres of gas per year.

Plenkovic and Breton both expressed their ongoing sympathy and firm support for Ukraine as Russian attacks continue, both believing in the very pressing need for continued military aid being sent over to Ukraine. It was precisely in this context that they also discussed the production of ammunition for Ukraine, the overall security of the European Union and taking measures to increase the production capacity of the European defense industry, as touched on above.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Secretary General, Mathias Cormann, visits Zagreb as Croatia edges closer to membership

As Novi list writes, the OECD's Secretary General paid a visit to Zagreb recently, and he had nothing but praise for Plenkovic's government in its swift and fruitful responses to all sorts of issues we're currently facing in this economically unfavourable climate.

''For now, the Croatian Government is reacting very quickly and efficiently, and I have no reason to doubt that this will continue,'' said Mathias Cormann.

The HRT team spoke with OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann, and he talked about the areas will he focus on when it comes to implementing reforms and whether or not Croatia's accession process can be completed in two years.

''We cover the entire spectrum of economic, social, environmental, and public order. So, from competition, public management, the fight against corruption to environmental protection standards, agricultural policy, and trade. We review the entire spectrum of public order in order to assess Croatian practices, legislation and policies and assess how far they are already aligned with the OECD standards or to what extent further reforms are needed to improve either policies or practices,'' said Mathias Cormann.

When it comes to what sort of key reforms Croatia needs to implement to improve, Cormann said that this is an ongoing process, and that this isn't really a political procedure but a technical review. What we do know is that there are 25 OECD policy committees with experts from 38 member states that will review all Croatian legislative policies and practices in the economy and society and assess their alignment with the proper standards.

 ''At the end of that process, they will recommend what improvements should be made. I can get back to you at that point so we can talk about it,'' Cormann stated, adding: ''I will say that Croatia is obviously very committed. It's progressing as fast as it can to meet all the conditions it needs to,''

 The Croatian Government ambitiously mentions a deadline of two years for OECD membership, but can these goals be achieved in two years? Cormann says there's no time frame.

''I say we're making progress as fast as we can, but it will take whatever amount of time it takes. This is a thorough and very serious procedure. Ultimately, it depends on how quickly the government provides the requested information and how quickly the government and parliament introduces the necessary reforms to implement all of the recommendations. For now, the Croatian Government is reacting very quickly and efficiently, and I have no reason to doubt that this will continue. But it is very difficult to determine the time frame,'' he concluded.

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

April the 14th, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've had to entertain the idea of Plenkovic potentially heading off for a very high position within NATO, calls to tackle the issues with the judiciary (again), leaked US documents have mentioned Croatia, and Franjo Tudjman took a tumble.

Foreign policy analyst Denis Avgadic talks Plenkovic, NATO, and issues with the Croatian judiciary

As Index writes, Croatian foreign policy analyst Denis Avdagic recently commented on the problems in the Croatian judiciary, the potential departure of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic to NATO, the ongoing war in Ukraine, protests raging in France, and the migrant crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy on N1 television.

The Croatian judiciary

"I think it's clear to everyone that the Croatian judiciary is the key cancer wound of this society and until we solve it, we'll continue to be forced to deal with problems that are far beyond our ability to solve them. Let's solve the issues with the Croatian judiciary first of all, and many things will become easier, more comfortable, and more efficiently as a result,'' he said.

"I believe that the Croatian judiciary needs a reform of a wider scale. The judiciary as it is now is simply ineffective," he added, noting that some cases are still being dealt with from the former state (Yugoslavia) and that this is utterly tragic.

Plenkovic could be heading off to NATO?

"The fact is that in European circles and a little more widely, Andrej Plenkovic is seen as a high quality member of staff, as a person who has certain diplomatic skills, quite extensive political experience, and as such he's acceptable for a whole range of supranational functions. First of all, we in Croatia have been talking for a long time about whether Plenkovic is simply sitting and waiting for a higher position at the level of the European Union," he pointed out.

"Looking at it from that aspect, it's clear that there is speculation as to who could be an adequate replacement at the head of NATO," he continued. He indicated the method of election of the head of NATO and that the bloc of new NATO members believes that the head of that alliance should be a person from that area who understands what Central and Eastern Europe has gone through what Ukraine is going through.

"Is Plenkovic a template person who would be responsible for that? Absolutely, yes, he is. Is Plenkovic a person who is acceptable to the whole bloc? Yes. Is he acceptable to the others? Absolutely. Is he acceptable to the Americans? Yes. Then we see why it occurred to someone to talk about him," claimed Avdagic. He noted that Plenkovic is one of the leaders of the EPP.

"Plenkovic is a good candidate for the head of NATO"

He believes that Plenkovic could become the head of the European Commission, but pointed out that Plenkovic is a relatively young politician and therefore there's no need for him to suddenly leave Croatian politics. Avdagic also emphasised that polls show that he could win another election right here in Croatia. "He's one of those politicians who is a good candidate for the post of NATO chief," he said.

A huge picture of Dr. Franjo Tudjman fell while Plenkovic was speaking

This was symbolism in motion in the eyes of many across the spectrum of Croatian politics as the first president of the independent Croatian nation almost cut Plenkovic's speech short. 

''Oh God, surely not?'' Plenkovic said while turning to see the huge image of Tudjman falling from its place, seemingly also aware of the symbolism behind such an amusing event. Tudjman's fall from grace as it were occurred precisely when a group of gathered journalists were asking him about Swedish media articles that had been circulating about him being among the candidates for the head of NATO, as I talked about above. Then the cameras turned to the wall where Tudjman is as the image fell down.

Politico claims that leaked secret US documents mention Croatia and Croatian helicopters

Europe has special forces on the ground in Ukraine, with Poland and Slovenia having provided almost half of the tanks delivered to Kiev. Neighbouring Hungary may also be releasing weapons through its airspace. These are just some of the striking details about European participation in the Russian-Ukrainian war from the 53-page document, based on leaked information from US military intelligence.

From precisely these leaked US documents, one can also learn something about the European war effort in Ukraine as a whole. The leaked files offer insight into everything from a British-dominated special forces group in Ukraine to how and when France and Spain will send a key missile system out into the battlefield. The documents also contain claims that Turkey is a potential source of arms for Russian mercenaries.

It's important to note that Politico hasn't independently verified the documents, and there are indications that some of the leaked pages are actually forged. That said, the USA has  acknowledged the intelligence breach and arrested the suspect on Thursday. Here are some of Politico's analyses after studying the dossier:

Europe allegedly has troops on the ground

According to the US documents, a European special forces group has been operating in Ukraine - at least since March the 23rd. The United Kingdom dominates the "US/NATO" contingent of 97 people with 50 members of its special forces. The group includes 17 people from Latvia, 15 from France and one from the Netherlands. There are also 14 American nationals.

As expected, national governments have been largely silent on the subject. The British declined to comment, while the White House admitted there was a "small US military presence" at the US embassy in Ukraine stressing that the troops were "not fighting on the battlefield". The other countries listed did not respond to a request for comment.

Europe is providing most of the tanks to Ukraine

Tanks are one area in which Europe collectively outdoes America. One page gives an overview of the 200 tanks that US allies have promised to send to Ukraine - 53 less than what the document says Ukraine needs for its spring offensive. Poland and Slovenia appear to be the biggest contributors, accounting for almost half of the total number of tanks, according to an estimate as of February the 23rd. France and the United Kingdom are also key players, each with 14 tanks.

There is also the modern German Leopard 2 tank, which Ukraine has spent months convincing its allies it needs. This composition includes Germany, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Finland.

Croatia is also mentioned

Neighbouring Hungary appears several times in the leaked documents, which offers a lot of information about a country headed by Viktor Orban that regularly confuses its own allies. The most interesting tidbit of all in this sense is buried in a "Top Secret" CIA update dated March the 2nd, which says Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban worryingly labelled the US as "one of his party's three biggest adversaries'' during a strategic policy session held in February this year.

These concerning remarks, the document points out, represent Orban's "escalating level of anti-American rhetoric." Indeed, Orban's somewhat controversial government charted its own course during the war by pushing pro-Russian narratives, essentially calling on Ukraine to back down and strongly rejecting allied efforts to isolate the Russian economy and impose harsh sanctions on the Russian Federation.

However, the US documents also show that Hungary - which shares a small border with Ukraine - may be secretly allowing allies to use its airspace to move weapons towards the battlefield despite promises to ban such transfers. One of the leaked documents describes the plan of Ukrainian pilots to fly donated helicopters from Croatia to Ukraine in detail, and it also claims that will be done "through Hungarian airspace". If this is indeed correct, the information shows not only that Hungary is releasing weapons through its skies but also contradicts media reports that the helicopters will be transferred by land or flights over Poland.

Hungarian and Croatian officials did not respond to any requests for comment.

Plenkovic says Eurozone and Schengen accession pushed Croatian growth forecasts above government expectations

Since Croatia's official entry into the Eurozone and the Schengen area on the 1st of January this year, international institutions revised the growth expectations of the Croatian economy above the government's GDP growth forecast for this year by 0.7 percent, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said during the opening of a recently held government session.

He recalled the World Bank's January forecast of 0.8 percent growth this year, which this month raised that same forecast to 1.3 percent, the European Commission announced in February that it expects Croatian GDP to grow by 1.2 percent, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated this year's growth of the Croatian economy by 1.7 percent a few days ago.

"The impact of membership in the Eurozone and in Schengen will be felt in terms of growth"

"All of this means that they're somewhat more optimistic than the forecasts that we ourselves projected, and I believe that the impact of membership in the Eurozone and the Schengen area will really be felt when it comes to domestic economic growth, which will be better than expected, despite the slowdown of the global economy in 2023,'' said the Prime Minister.

He noted that according to Eurostat data, Croatia has reached 73 percent of the EU level of development, taking GDP per capita as a measure, which is the highest level so far, and in 2016, the country was at 62 percent. This means that Croatia is using its international position strongly and maximally, Plenkovic asserted. As for tourism, he predicts that this year's summer season will be a record one. He also announced further government activity in preparations for loans from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

So far, as he explained, 2.2 billion euros have been paid to Croatia free of charge out of the 5.5 billion that are available, and the country has another 3.6 billion euros of loans available, with the government wanting to invest this money in education, renovation, energy efficiency, the water supply, transport, energy, gasification, etc.

For more on Croatian politics, make sure to follow our dedicated section. A Week in Croatian Politics providing an overview is published every Friday.

April the 7th, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've seen ex Prime Minister but current prison inmate Ivo Sanader's art collection begin being sold off, Plenkovic has been accused of encroaching on peoples' rights by a law expert, another HDZ official has been accused of inappropriate behaviour, and more. Happy Easter!

Former PM Ivo Sanader's art collections are being sold off

Ivo Sanader is arguably HDZ's most infamous criminal of all, currently serving his sentence in Remetinec prison for corruption. His art collection is now being sold off. 

As Index reports, the state confiscated art works belonging to former PM Ivo Sanader and will put many of them up for public auction to be sold off. Although the former prime minister once claimed that he had works of art worth 1.5 million kuna in his collection, it's now clear that their value is actuallty much higher. Among the paintings that will be auctioned off are five works by no less than Vlaho Bukovac.

However, the road to the public auction was arduous. Back at the end of December 2010, investigators spent a massive sixteen hours cataloging all of his works of art. Taking them out around midnight was not an easy task at all, but there were no Bukovac paintings among the seized materials back then, so a month later, the police issued a warrant for them. They were removed after twelve years.

Five paintings by that famous painter are being kept in the Museum of Contemporary Art. As Dnevnik Nova TV writes, appraisers assessed a total of twelve works of art by Ivo Sanader at a total value of more than 240,000 euros. The state is demanding slightly more than 11 million euros from ex PM Sanader. What will happen to Bukovac's works is also being closely monitored in the painter's birthplace (his former home) down in Konavle, in the extreme south of Dalmatia, which has been converted into an art gallery.

"Until now, we've witnessed a large number of auctions where various Bukovac works were sold off, including very important examples, and, unfortunately, we can't obtain such material," said Antonika Ruskovic Radonic, the director of the Public Institution for culture, museums and galleries in Konavle. In the opinion of many people, it's somewhat absurd that now, when the state finally has the paintings of the most valued Croatian painter in its possession, it's selling that material off.

"For the Bukovac house, those works would be exceptional because that represents the beginning for everyone who researches Bukovac, his life and his work. It's the first place you come to because of its archive and the valuable materials kept here," said Ruskovic Radonic. However, not all of them are available to the public because many of Bukovac's works are privately owned. They can be purchased from private collectors.

Euronews claims certain Croatian MEPs have been downplaying crimes committed during Croatia's time as an Axis country and beyond

Croatia, then the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna drzava hrvatska/NDH), was aligned with the Germans (perhaps better to say with the array of Axis states) during the second world war. The government back during those days was led by Dr. Ante Pavelic, and numerous crimes were committed in Croatia much like they were across the majority of Europe in that dark period of history. Euronews has accused Croatian MEPs of downplaying Croatian crimes committed between 1941 and 1945, and beyond it.

Recently, Croatian representatives in the European Parliament in Brussels organised events where, it seems to some, they dragged up controversial issues related to terrorism and Nazi collaborators from a certain period of Croatian history that nobody really likes to talk about.

Zeljana Zovko, representative of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), attended a seminar last week as part of a series of events of the European People's Party group in the European Parliament, according to Euronews. According to the panel's premise, they focused on the terrifying secret services of former communist nations, because "the totalitarian regimes of the past may no longer exist, but their secret services and networks live on," Zovko said.

As Index reports, Zdravka Busic, a member of the Croatian National Resistance or Otpor back during the 1970s, gave a presentation at the event. Many consider Otpor to be a ''far-right organisation responsible for several terrorist attacks around the world.'' Of course, things run a little deeper and are more complex than that, as with all things Croatian, but I digress.

"I'm sure that Zdravka Busic will contribute significantly to this seminar with her deep knowledge and personal experience on this issue," continued Zovko.

Back in September 1976, Zdravka's brother Zvonko Busic participated in the hijacking of a Trans World Airlines plane flying from New York to Chicago and planted a bomb at Grand Central Station in New York, demanding that an appeal for Croatian independence be published in a leading American newspaper. The plane was diverted to Montreal and then to Newfoundland, where 35 passengers were released. After negotiations with the American ambassador in Paris, the hijackers surrendered.

One New York policeman was killed while dismantling the bomb, and the perpetrators were convicted of air piracy. This leads some to the question of: just why did Zdravka Busic feel the need to speak about these topics in the European Parliament? The panel appealed for the opening of state archives of the former communist secret services, "so that they can be fully investigated and deal with the existing structures from the communist era and their crimes". This is a request that has been being revisited and reopened for many years now.

Zdravka Busic and her brother were rehabilitated after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the declaration of Croatia's independence. She was a member of the Croatian Parliament and a member of the European Parliament after Croatia joined the EU in 2013. In her presentation, Busic focused on the actions of Yugoslavia's state security, or UDBA, which she accused of committing heinous crimes, including imprisoning, torturing and killing those deemed to be participating in "hostile activities against the state."

"Many individuals from the young Croatian generation believed that the creation of an independent and democratic state of Croatia was of crucial importance," Busic explained at the meeting.

Busic did not directly address - or even mention - the activities in which she, her brother and husband were convicted, although she expressed several views on the activities of Croatian emigrant communities or the diaspora, according to a recording of the panel obtained by Euronews. Why are communist crimes being talked about today, you might ask? Zdravka Busic insisted that "the biological descendants and ideological followers of communists have great power even now in the modern age" and that communist ideology left a "clear mark of contamination" on all of Croatian society. Most with any knowledge of the period wouldn't disagree, and although the topic of the discussion might seem reasonable at first glance, Busic and other speakers failed to mention the fact that the conversation about communist crimes is still a platform for gathering the far right, ultra-nationalists and Nazi apologists who promote ideas that promote discrimination even today.

These topics are meant to stoke fears and justify their beliefs, believes Michael Colborne, a journalist and researcher at Bellingcat who has covered Croatia and the Balkans extensively.

Former HDZ Parliamentarian is going to court for allegedly threatening a journalist

The county court in Split has now confirmed the legality of the indictment against the long-time mayor of Seget Municipality and former HDZ MP, Vinko Zulim, who is being charged with threats against Slobodna Dalmacija journalist Vinko Vukovic.

The prosecution, without specifying any of the actual identities of the individuals involved, reported that the court had accepted the state attorney's appeal against the earlier decision of the indictment panel of the Split Municipal Court against Zulim, with the explanation that the words uttered were not specified and that the factual description of the indictment didn't represent a serious threat. It was also said that ''there was no intention [that could be taken from his words] of frightening or disturbing Vukovic.

According to the opinion of the indictment panel of the first-instance court, it's an inappropriate and offensive form of communication, and not a serious and specific threat, as was added by the prosecutor's office.

Zulim told the journalist that he knew who he was and where he lived, which I'm not sure could be taken in any other manner than a threatening one. The High Court, the prosecution added, in the explanation of the ruling on the merits of the indictment stated that the indictment contains everything necessary to be able to act on it, including the content of the words which the state attorney considers to be the legal features of the criminal act of threat.

At the same time, the court states that the state attorney correctly indicates in his appeal that the words spoken by the defendant should be viewed in the context of the entire event and that all the words spoken indicate the existence of well-founded suspicion of the alleged criminal act. The prosecution accuses Zulim that during a telephone conversation on January the 20th last year, when outraged by a question about his son's employment in the Seget Municipality, he first used insults in raised tones of voice, and then made a serious threat, which caused the journalist a feeling of anxiety and fear for the safety of himself and his family.

According to the indictment, Vukovic called Zulim to ask him if an individual called ''M. Z.'', whom he states is employed by the Seget Municipality, is in actual fact his son. At that, Zulim burst into anger and told Vukovic that he knew who he was and where he lived, and that he had two little girls. He insulted him and mentioned the possibility of coming to Vukovic's residential address. When the journalist asked what he would do if he came, Zulim told him that he would kiss him on the forehead, according to the indictment.

This particular indictment against Zulim came to the attention of the authorities last summer, and in the autumn of 2022, USKOK also came to suspect him of unjustifiably spending municipal money on the national team in both 2017 and 2018. He was accused of ordering that the municipality of Seget Donji, while he was at its head, issue purchase orders for the consumption of food and drinks from private gatherings in various catering and hospitality facilities, which he gave the green light with his signature, and although there was no basis for this, he ordered such services to be paid for by the municipality.

Based on the purchase orders issued in this way and Zulim's verbal orders, the catering and hospitality facilities issued invoices to the municipality for the services provided. At the same time, according to USKOK, he allegedly wrote explanations for such gatherings with his own hand, claiming that members of various commissions, associations and representatives of state institutions were hosted, when in actual fact they were members of HDZ as the municipal ruling party, as well as individual municipal employees.

Ivan Rimac, a Professor of Law has stated that PM Andrej Plenkovic is ''directly encroaching upon peoples' rights''

Ivan Rimac, a professor from the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, analysed the Sortirnica and Agrokor affairs and other current topics from the sphere of justice and legislation on N1 television. Referring to the Sortirnica affair, i.e. the new action of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) in which five people were arrested because of the waste sorting plant in Rijeka, Rimac said that all HDZ members probably now feel relieved because they can point the finger at someone else after a lot of fingers having been pointed at them by others.

"Plenkovic directly encroaches on the peoples' rights,'' Rimac believes. When asked if he expected the announcements of changes to the CPC to stop data leakage to be followed through, Rimac said the following:

"The solution offered by Plenkovic is a direct encroachment on peoples' right to be informed about what state services do and how state money is spent. The introduction of such an institute, especially with the slowness of our judicial system, means a practical embargo on the publication of any information about the actions taken by government officials. It is the same as having a censorship of the press. I see nothing further than that that could go in favour of such proposals. I believe that it would be good for judicial processes to make decisions with calm heads, but the public has the right to know what goes on in this regard.''

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

April the 5th, 2023 - Could former Agrokor boss Ivica Todoric now have the upper hand in an arbitration dispute across the pond in Washington? The man who was once plastered across the glossy pages of Forbes as Croatia's richest has announced that he's going to step back into politics.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, Goran Jandrokovic, the Croatian Parliament speaker, asked if a journalist was ''seriously asking him that'' when asked for his comments on Ivica Todoric's latest plans to become politically active in time for the next elections.

Despite his uncertainty about the legitimacy of the question put to him, Jandrokovic simply stated: "we live in a democracy, anyone who has political ambitions can run for office". Even parliament member Katarina Peovic, who is known for her controversial statements and stances, doesn't consider Ivica Todoric's political plans to be a topic of interest for her, as she considers him to be the "Monty Python of the political scene". The former owner of Agrokor, however, has been plotting and is going to announce a political party of his own.

The formation of a new political party wasn't the sole reason for the former gazda (boss) calling a press conference. As the main topic, he highlighted the way in which the Extraordinary Administration of Agrokor ''created the insolvency of the entire Agrokor Group and the financial and business situation of today's Agrokor (Fortenova) in relation to Agrokor d.d.''. Yes, he's still talking about it.

In short, Ivica Todoric believes that he was the victim of a conspiracy and a plan to take over Agrokor's assets, which won't come as any sort of new information to anyone who has followed the Agrokor fallout from back in 2017. He alleges that Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and the Borg group are at the helm of said conspiracy, and, according to him, foreign services, Russian and American, also played a significant role in everything. Although for years before 2017 and the introduction of extraordinary management, Agrokor followed the epithet of a highly indebted company, he still claims that Agrokor was not in financial trouble, and he reiterated that the plan was to go to the London Stock Exchange.

"In order to achieve the goal of a hostile takeover of Agrokor and expropriation, the bankruptcy of the entire Agrokor Group, i.e. the key 40 companies, had to be ensured. Since no company within the Group was insolvent, it was impossible to implement bankruptcy proceedings. Therefore, a monstrous plan was constructed by which co-debtor guarantees of members of the Agrokor Group were booked into the expenses and liabilities of each of the companies, and that was done in full, in order to create a fictitious insolvency,'' these are some of the highlights of Todoric's claimed truth.

In this regard, he says that the co-debt guarantees issued by 16 members of the Group for Agrokor d.d. amounted to 14 billion kuna, which was "turned" into 224 billion kuna by the aforementioned accounting multiplication. He explained more, and stated that eventually, all of this debt was in his words ''artificially multiplied'' to the enormous sum of 320 billion kuna.

The problem, however, is that even without this accounting multiplication, the guarantee would have sunk the operating companies entirely. Another question is whether the guarantees were approved in a legal way even before the Extraordinary Administration took over. In fact, Ivica Todoric is saying today that the debt of the former Agrokor was actually a so-called "junk debt" that was being written off. In other words, it follows that the guarantees shouldn't actually have been accepted, but according to Todoric, the extraordinary administration didn't refuse any of that because it was the only way to declare insolvency for Agrokor. The former owner of the massive domestic concern also believes that Agrokor's debt stood at 35 billion kuna out of 50 billion kuna in turnover, adding that "today they have 30 billion kuna in turnover and 33.5 billion kuna in debt" and that "the company (being Fortenova) is withering".

Admittedly, in his interpretation, it turns out that the aforementioned debt of Fortenova was practically newly created, although that is not exactly the case.

Even from the time the settlement was agreed due to the controversies that followed the entire process, it was clear that this insolvency procedure would have quite a few legal tails to it. And the fact that Ivica Todoric, who used to be much more inclined to one-way communication, has lately been making public appearances is more related to legal processes than anything else.

First of all, he was certainly encouraged by the DORH debacle in connection with the expert report in the case of the so-called of the ''great (veliki) Agrokor'', i.e. by the decision of the Indictment Panel of the County Court in Zagreb, which deemed Ismet Kamal's financial expertise, on which the indictment for withdrawing 1.2 billion kuna was based, illegal evidence.

Will this prove to be an important trump card in the arbitration dispute that Todoric and his Dutch company initiated in Washington some two years ago? Perhaps. He seems to be counting on that, and claims that, in addition to the USA, he has the right to litigate in several European countries.

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

March the 31st, 2023 - This week in Croatian politics, we've had discussions around the hypothetical arrest of Vladimir Putin, donations of helicopters and a huge sum of cash to Ukraine, gas price worries and Ivica Todoric is back where he loves to be the most - in the spotlight.

Former Agrokor boss Ivica Todoric is thrilled that Index readers stated they'd sooner vote for him as prime minister than current PM Andrej Plenkovic

If you're a follower of politics (and scandals) in Croatia, you'll more than likely recall one of the most enormous events in independent Croatian history - the Agrokor saga. I wrote a lot about it back at the time, and you can get a feel of it here, in an article entitled Requiem for a Company. Ivica Todoric, the former boss of this huge company, fell into troubled waters and there was a huge amount of drama surrounding the entire story. It eventually ended with him being extradited back to Croatia from London after handing himself in at Charring Cross police station following his stay in the United Kingdom in an attempt to avoid Croatian courts. 

Todoric is currently a free man, and despite all of the dramatics of that situation from back in 2017, he is still more popular than Andrej Plenkovic in the opinion of some Index readers. Index recently carried out a poll asking their readers who they'd sooner vote for as prime minister, the current one (Plenkovic), or the somewhat Godfather-like character, Ivica Todoric. They chose the latter, and he's thrilled about it.

Todoric is known for his humour (no, really), and the inspiration for that poll was provided by Todoric himself, who published a similar one on his own Facebook profile and, examining the pulse of the people, asked whether the citizens of Croatia wanted him or Andrej Plenkovic as prime minister. In his Facebook poll, Todoric received 92% of the votes in his favour, and Index readers who share a similar sense of humour also gave Todoric a shining 72% advantage in its own poll.

Would Croatia arrest Vladimir Putin if he entered the country? Plenkovic says yes

Plenkovic recently made a statement during his stay in the Belgian capital of Brussels after a two-day spring meeting at the summit of European leaders. The main topics of the summit were further support for Ukraine, especially in sufficient quantities of ammunition, the competitiveness of the European economy, especially in relation to the United States and China, and the internal market and issues of energy and migration.

"Once again, we showed our commitment and solidarity to Ukraine in all aspects. We also discussed the topics of economic management, competitiveness and the energy situation, where everything that has been happening for the past three years in the context of the coronavirus crisis, the energy crisis, the food crisis and inflationary pressures essentially requires greater coordination of the economic policies of EU member states," Plenkovic said.

In response to the question of whether or not the Croatian authorities would arrest Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin if he arrived here in Croatia, Plenkovic said an emphatic and blunt - yes.

''The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, so if he were to visit Croatia, he would be arrested in accordance with the procedure stipulated by that law,'' Plenkovic said.

Croatia otherwise acceded to the statute of the International Criminal Court and a law was passed on cooperation with that court. "That law provides for all the procedures in case there is a warrant issued for the arrest of a person, and as far as I know, immunity does not apply here. Accordingly, the procedure would go exactly as provided for by that law, and of course the Croatian police and competent authorities would react to Putin arriving in Croatia," said Plenkovic in response to a journalist's question.

President Zoran Milanovic makes a strange statement about the Russia-Ukraine war once again, this time about donated Croatian helicopters

Croatia, much like the rest of the EU and indeed most of the world, has stood firmly by Ukraine's side ever since the beginning of the shock Russian invasion back in February 2022. Having been through a horrific war just one generation ago and with those painful memories still very fresh, Croatia is able to understand the Ukrainian struggle against Russian aggression like few other countries are, given that the now shared experience both countries have is so recent. Milanovic, however, has continuously been vocal about his rather odd stances for over a year now. He has invited endless criticism and even questions from other politicians from across Europe about just what Croatia's official stance is.

Of course, Milanovic's strange statements and stances are not remotely in line with the official Croatian position - firmly by Ukraine's side and staunchly against Russia's actions. Plenkovic, with whom Milanovic is constantly butting heads, has spoken about this numerous times, attempting to distance not only himself personally but Croatian politics as a whole from the president's baffling and politically damaging remarks. 

The latest such remark from Milanovic regards helicopters Croatia donated to Ukraine, and which should be delivered there very soon. Milanovic was quick to tell journalists that these helicopters "needed getting rid of anyway'' because Croatia no longer has the conditions for their maintenance.

To keep you in the loop, Croatia is donating fourteen transport helicopters to Ukraine, of which twelve are MI 8 MTV-1 models and two are MI 8 T models. Defense Minister Mario Banozic said on Wednesday in the Ukrainian city of Odessa that he expects these helicopters to arrive in Ukraine soon.

Milanovic dressed his comments up in a fashion which makes it seem as if Croatia is simply doling out its useless cast-offs to the Ukrainian people, which has angered multiple people in Croatian politics and beyond. "Those helicopters aren't something promising anyway, we wouldn't have the conditions or the ability to maintain them anymore, because we have a lot of those helicopters and we need to get rid of them,'' he claimed.

Croatia also recently agreed to provide another 500,000 euros to Ukraine.

As the Croatian Government alters its decision on price controls, milk prices shoot up

On Thursday, the Croatian government changed the decision on direct price control measures for specific food products in such a way that the highest retail price of UHT milk with 2.8 percent milk fat per liter has now been raised by 5 cents and the price it cannot exceed amounts to 1.03 euros.

You can read more detail about that by clicking here.

Economy Minister Davor Filipovic has claimed that energy (gas) prices won't go up as of tomorrow, when the current measures are due to expire

A cabinet meeting was held recently in the National and University Library, as Index reports. On the agenda of the session was the decision to approve the granting of a shareholder loan to Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP) and the initiation of the recapitalisation procedure. Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced that HEP will be given a shareholder loan, first of 400 million euros, and then another 500 million euros. Minister Davor Filipovic also made a statement after the session, where he discussed the topic on everyone's minds - price increases following the expiration of government measures on the 1st of April, 2023.

"The price of gas will not change from April the 1st. Everything will be fine, as it has been until now. People don't have to worry about it. We're protecting the people and the economy, and there will be no problems in that regard, people don't need to worry about any of that," he added.

"The government has now made several important decisions. One of them is the granting of a shareholder loan to HEP and recapitalisation. This is being done so that HEP will continue to bear the burden of this crisis and so that people can continue to have a favourable price for electricity. We've agreed that HEP will extend the repayment of the loan in order to be able to continuously purchase the energy products that are necessary for the functioning of the domestic economy," said Filipovic.

"We're moving in the direction of recapitalisation, and as for HEP's financial results, you should ask the HEP Management. We haven't yet received any financial results from them, the obligation for us to be given those results is just after March, so everything is still within the legal deadline. HEP's management is responsible for that and it's up to them," he added.

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