ZAGREB, 30 March 2022 - Culture and Media Minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek has expressed her satisfaction with the pace of reconstruction of cultural heritage buildings following a devastating earthquake two years ago.

"The Ministry of Culture and Media has signed contracts for projects worth HRK 3.5 billion. According to yesterday's data, more than 50 projects have been launched and some have been finished. Six or seven out of 150 buildings have been restored, and those are smaller buildings. Over the next month, structural reconstruction will begin for about 50 buildings," Obuljen Koržinek said in an interview with Croatian Radio on Wednesday morning.

She said that some of the projects were risky and would take years to complete, such as Zagreb's Mirogoj Cemetery, Cathedral, Museum of Arts and Crafts, and Mimara Museum.

Speaking on the financial aspect of the reconstruction process, Obuljen Koržinek said: "As far as cultural heritage is concerned, we will spend our entire initial allocation by the initial deadline." 

She said that two weeks ago her ministry had shared the Croatian experience regarding the protection of works of art during the Homeland War with their Ukrainian colleagues, and announced a shipment of aid, including fire extinguishers. She said a project was also being prepared to buy up books from Ukraine and distribute them to public libraries across Croatia.

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June the 8th, 2021 - Damir Vandjelic, the director of the Reconstruction Fund, has spoken out about the length of time the reconstruction process following the earthquakes of 2020 is taking, adding that things need to be streamlined and sped up significantly.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Lepan Stefancic/VL writes, Damir Vandjelic openly stated recently that the reconstruction process after the 2020 earthquakes was proceeding much too slowly and that, when looking at how it began and the speed of those beginnings, he is struggling to believe that it will accelerate. Speaking on the matter for N1, he said that the demolition of three houses according to the requests for post-earthquake reconstruction is starting only this week.

"In order for excavators to come out to the streets, according to the Law on Reconstruction, people need to submit their respective requests to the ministry. The Ministry has 11,100 requests, of which 18 decisions came to the Fund, and a total of 155 acts came from the Ministry.

The difference between 155 and 18 is actually the documentation that we obtain in the administrative procedure for the ministry, meaning the gross area of ​​the buildings, the assessment of the construction and the like,'' he explained.

"On Friday, we signed three decisions on the selection of contractors, and next week the removal of three family houses in the epicentre of the March 2020 Zagreb earthquake, in the Markusevac area, should finally begin. Now there are only three, but 20 are reportedly in preparation,'' he added.

Damir Vandjelic made no bones about his feelings on things going at Croatia's infuriatingly typical snail's pace, and reiterated his position that the reconstruction is proceeding too slowly for Vecernji list.

"Yes, exactly. Over last three weeks we've been getting just two decisions a week. On 19,000 buildings, just two decisions, that just isn't very fast. The processing of peoples' requests needs to be sped up, and I'd even dare to suggest that the Law on Reconstruction should be improved in some segments.

Therefore, the processing of these requests must be done much more quickly, not just two decisions per week. It can be accelerated, here in the Fund we've shown that we can do about twenty procurements a day, so I think it would be alright for them to throw out about 50 decisions a week,'' Damir Vandjelic explained.

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