ZAGREB, 28 Aug, 2021 - The political secretary of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Ante Sanader, said on Saturday that the fake sovereignists were scaring the people about the euro", however they themselves had rushed to the European Parliament to get earnings in that currency.

Sanader wrote on his Facebook account that there was no need for any referendum about the introduction of the euro in Croatia.

There is no need and no legal possibility for a referendum on Croatia's admission to the euro area and the changeover to the euro, as the decision on that matter was made in 2012 when Croatia held a referendum on its EU membership and when Croatian parliament ratified the EU admission treaty.

At  the 22 January 2012 referendum, 66.27% of Croatian voters supported Croatia's accession to the European Union. With 136 "Yes" votes, Croatian Parliament unanimously ratified on 9 March the Accession Treaty of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union.

On Saturday morning a member of parliament from the Croatian Sovereignists party, Marko Milanović Litre, said that his party was launching a campaign for a referendum on the introduction of the euro, criticising the government for ignoring citizens' opinion on the matter.

Sanader also recalls that a member of Sovereignist party, Ladislav Ilčić whom he branded as "great anti-European" grabbed the first opportunity to become a member of the European Parliament.

 "Obviously, fake sovereignists including Milanović Litre cannot understand and do not know what the present-day struggle for the national interests means and what the present-day sovereignism looks like," Sanader wrote, citing some of the benefits of Croatia's membership of the European Union, such as the EU-funded project of the construction of Pelješac Bridge that connects the southernmost Croatian with the rest of the country.

He also mentioned the allocation of 25 billion euros from the EU for Croatia's development in the next years.

For more on politics, follow TCN's dedicated page.

For more about Croatia, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 21 July, 2021 - The Croatian coat-of-arms, a geographical map of Croatia, the marten (Croatian: kuna), the Glagolitic script and Nikola Tesla are motifs proposed for the Croatian side of euro coins, the Croatian National Bank (HNB) said on Wednesday.

The HNB Currency Committee today defined the final proposal for motifs for the national sides of future Croatian euro coins, which will now be considered by the National Council for the Introduction of the Euro as Official Currency in the Republic of Croatia, and then the government will adopt a conclusion.

The Croatian coat-of-arms will be used as a background on all coins, and other motifs will be used on coins of different denominations so that the 2 euro coin will feature a geographical map of Croatia, the 1 euro coin the marten, the 50, 20 and 10 cents coins Nikola Tesla, and 1, 2 and 5 cents coins the Glagolitic script.

The HNB said the main criteria for the selection was that the motif is acceptable to the general public and that it is a national symbol.

The rating given by citizens via an online survey at euro.hr, in which nearly 50,000 citizens took part, and a structured national survey on a sample of 1,000 citizens also influenced the Committee's final decision.

Based on the selected motifs, the HNB will announce a tender for the design of the national side of the euro coin. In mid October, the HNB will send the design of the motifs to the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, the press release said.

The production of euro coins with the Croatian national side should start at least six months before the introduction of the euro, that is the decision of the Council of the EU that Croatia is introducing the euro.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

May the 5th, 2021 - The Croatian public has always had a very suspicious view of the entry of the country into the formerly deeply troubled Eurozone, but it seems that although it's only very slight, that opinion is beginning to alter. Skepticism, however, remains as strong as it was when the country's very EU referendum took place.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Jadranka Dozan writes, the positive image of the European Union (EU) held by the Croatian public today is slightly better than it was around half a year ago, according to the national report of the Standard Eurobarometer for Croatia, which was published recently by the European Commission (EC).

When compared to the previous Croatian public opinion poll on the EU, the positive perception of surveyed Croatian citizens increased by one percentage point (from 47 to 48 percent), while at the same time the negative perception decreased by two points, from 13 down to 11 percent.

According to the latest Eurobarometer results, Croatian respondents in the latest survey also showed slightly higher support for the country's planned entry into the Eurozone than they did half a year ago. However, although this support has increased by one percentage point, up to 48 percent, and the number of those who oppose Eurozone entry has decreased by the same amount, Croatia still deviates considerably from the EU average. In the rest of the bloc, the single currency is supported by as much as 70 percent of the population of its member states, or three percent more than was recorded just half a year ago.

As the European Commission points out, European respondents, as well as the Croatian public, are at the forefront of the EU's achievements in the free movement of people, goods and services within the territory of the bloc. They consider peace among the EU's member states to be the second most important plus, and solidarity among the EU member states is in the third place.

The aforementioned survey was commissioned by the European Commission's Directorate General for Communication, and the survey in Croatia, on a representative sample of 1,028 citizens over the age of fifteen through direct interviews with respondents in their own homes, was conducted by the Hendal agency from February the 15th to March the 7th this year. The Standard Eurobarometer survey is otherwise conducted twice a year, and of the 94 such surveys conducted so far, the most recent is the 33rd, which also covers Croatia.

For more, follow our politics section.

August 30, 2020 – Should Croatia join the Euro? No, says Nobel prize-winning economist. And Coronavirus is exactly why.

Should Croatia join the Euro? To be honest, we thought this had already been decided upon. But, new comments made by Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz on Saturday 29 August open the question again within the new perspective of the Coronavirus era.

We say new comments, but that's not exactly true. Stiglitz, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2001, has long been an opponent of the Euro. He is of the opinion that joining the single currency removes a country's ability to respond to crises. While it is true that joining the single currency removes a country's ability to change the exchange rate and deprives it of monetary policy, and thus of changing interest rates, the rub is that Euro countries get more favourable loan deals.

On 10th July 2020, Croatia and Bulgaria joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II), a necessary step in joining the Euro. Both must spend at least two years in ERM II before joining the single currency. Croatia will be eligible to adopt the Euro in January 2023. But what will be the situation with Coronavirus and its economic fallout at that time? Should Croatia join the Euro?

The Euro is the currency for only 19 of the 27 countries in the EU. Some EU countries, such as Sweden and formerly the UK, have flatly refused to introduce the Euro despite many years of EU membership, believing that having a national currency is absolutely necessary to manage economic policy.

"I think that every country that retains its flexibility is well advised," said Stiglitz, in an online exchange during this year's Alpbach European Forum. Stiglitz, a former World Bank chief economist and former economic adviser to US President Bill Clinton, is of the opinion that grants available to EU member states should instead be used to deal with times of crises, rather than cheaper loans facilitated by being a member of the single currency.

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

Read the Croatian Travel Update in your language - now available in 24 languages

Join the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community.

If things go according to the plans and wishes of the Government, Croatia should replace the national currency with the euro about a year and a half before its 30th birthday, but as Poslovni Dnevnik/Jadranka Dozan writes on the 13th of July, 2020, there are numerous obstacles to overcome on the path to the Eurozone...

On Friday, Croatia got the green light Brussels for the entry of Croatia (and Bulgaria) into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II), and we learned that the central parity between the euro and the kuna with which to enter the Eurozone's proverbial ''lobby'' was set at 7.5345 kuna for one euro, which was the state of the exchange rate on Friday.

At least two years should be spent in the Eurozone's waiting room, which would mean the introduction of a common European currency at the earliest in early 2023. How likely this actually is for Croatia is quite another story.

"Joining the ERM II doesn't mean that the process of adopting the euro is now on autopilot, because both Croatia and Bulgaria are still facing important challenges and will hardly meet all the convergence criteria anytime soon," said ING analysts.

In short, while the Croatian authorities calculate that we are currently on the way to meeting the necessary criteria, the bank's economists predict the introduction of the euro for Croatia (as well as for the Bulgarians) "well after January the 1st, 2023."

In the case of Croatia, they see the challenges primarily in the sphere of the sustainability of public finances (public debt, deficit), and for Bulgaria, the main thorn in the side of that country is its institutional framework and the rule of law.

A ticket to ERM II was actually expected as the Croatian Government managed to comply with the reform points promised in last year's action plan, and the banks have also passed a comprehensive ECB assessment. However, the news received a lot of attention and positive comments, including the reaction of the market through the decline in yields on Croatian government debt - it fell to about 1.1 percent in a ten-year period.

By joining the exchange rate mechanism, which is accompanied by the establishment of very, very close cooperation with the European Central Bank, Croatia will be able to count on more generous ECB support than the recently agreed two billion euro heavy package as an additional source of foreign exchange liquidity.

At the same time, after Brexit and with the current frictions over the adoption of the EU Economic Recovery Plan, this is a welcome message that there is still an appetite among some nations for greater integration within the Union for the bloc itself after all.

Of the EU countries that have not yet adopted the euro, most of them don't yet show any intention of doing so.

The advantages of Croatia's entry into the Eurozone are considered to outweigh the disadvantages. Thus, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) points out that the introduction of the euro should facilitate the business of entrepreneurs with more ease.

In addition to the elimination of currency risk and exchange costs, as well as the potential growth of the credit rating and lower financing costs, they also emphasised the advantages of additional financing that Eurozone members have in the current coronavirus crisis.

Entrepreneurs who advocate Croatian Eurozone membership see this as a better chance to implement the reforms that are desperately needed in Croatia, but unfortunately only get done when the country is under significant external pressure.

In addition to the Maastricht criteria, part of the set of measures that Croatia has undertaken to implement within the ERM II application includes administrative, ie the parafiscal relief of the economy and residents, as well as measures related to improving bankruptcy legislation and management in state-owned enterprises.

When it comes to those against the introduction of the euro, the arguments are mainly buffered up by claims that Croatia isn't yet economically ready for this step. People, on the other hand, are most afraid of the potential for rising prices.

They cite examples from other countries that suggest that prices should not increase significantly, and in most countries there has been some increase in wages at the same time to make up for it.

Given the weak industry and large imports, the average price level of consumer goods and services in Croatia is still higher than in some Eurozone countries. Finance Minister Zdravko Maric emphasised that the tax policy is still in our hands, and this also has an impact on prices and the control of them.

For more on Croatia's path to the Eurozone, follow our politics section.