ZAGREB, 22 March 2022 - Croatia on Tuesday marked the second anniversary of the devastating 5.5-strong earthquake that hit the capital city of Zagreb and northwestern parts of the country at 0624 hours on 22 March 2020 and killed a 15-year-old girl, while 27 people were injured.

The natural disaster caused extensive damage estimated at HRK 86.4 billion (€11.5 billion).

Croatia was granted €683.7 million for earthquake relief according to the provisions of the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF).

As many as 25,0000 properties were destroyed or severely damaged, including buildings housing hospital and schools in the city centre as well as Government House and Parliament Hall.

Although some headway has been made in the post-quake reconstruction, residents in the quake-affected areas and the general public are eagerly waiting for the reconstruction to be in full swing.

The Reconstruction Fund explains that that public procurement procedures and designing had taken more than than initially planned.

This spring, the reconstruction and retrofitting of over 120 blocks of flats and family homes are scheduled to start.

Also the repairs that do not include seismic retrofitting are to be done to roughly 500 residential buildings this year.

Furthermore the authorities have recently started disbursing the compensation to the owners who have already rebuilt their quake-damaged properties on their own initiative.

Majority of school buildings reconstructed

So far, most of the school buildings affected by the tremor have already been reconstructed.

The Medical School has been awarded HRK 377 million for the rebuilding and upgrade of its five buildings.

Also, the Croatian Parliament's building has been awarded HRK 87.6 million for its post-quake reconstruction.

€266m contracts inked for Zagreb health institutions' post-quake reconstruction

A total of 43 contracts, worth 1.98 billion kuna, have been signed so far for the post-quake reconstruction of health institutions in Zagreb and its surroundings, since the 22 March 2020  earthquake, according to the data provided recently by the Health Ministry.

€466m for renovation of historical and cultural landmarks, places of worship

The ministry of culture and media has reported that the contracts have been concluded on the reconstruction of 149 projects concerning listed building housing museums, churches and other important institutions, and HRK 3.5 billion has been put at the disposal by the Solidarity Fund for this purpose.

Year-long extension of deadline for using EU quake relief

Croatia will be able to use the relief granted from the EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF) for earthquake reconstruction in Zagreb until June 2023, which has been adjusted to the period for the use of the allocation for the 6.4-strong earthquake that hit the area of Banovina in Sisak Moslavina County on 29 December 2020 and progressive damage caused.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)

May 13, 2021 - With Croatian scientists' reputation on the rise on the world stage, dr. Vernessa Smolčić is now the Croatian European Research Council (ERC) Fund Receiver. 

Croatian scientists continue to impact the European science scene. As the Faculty of Science (PMF) at the University of Zagreb reports on its website, their scientist and professor, dr. Vernesa Smolčić is one of the 10,000 receivers of non-returnable funds by the European Research Council (ERC). As PMF states, the excellence of research work is the only criteria to get these funds.

„Scientists compete in a very strong international competition in which the European Commission from the total number of applications picks up only 8-15% of the best. Projects founded by the ERC are the best researches in all of Europe, and working on ERC projects increase international recognition of the research, and cooperation with the elite global universities“, says PMF.

An online ceremony saw representatives of ERC welcoming all 10,000 receivers with particularly pointing out the top 15 who contributed to the transformation of science and research.

One of them was, you guessed it, dr. Vernessa Smolčić.

„Vernesa Smolčić studied physics at the University of Zagreb, where she is now a full professor at the Department of Physics in the Faculty of Science. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, followed by a postdoctoral position at Caltech in California, USA. In 2009, she obtained an independent ESO ALMA COFUND Fellowship from the European Southern Observatory. In 2013, she won one of the first ERC Starting Grants in Croatia“, says the ERC website.

screenshot / Astroučionica

The website also offers more details on how Smolčić (and other scientists, for that matter) made an incredible contribution in expanding human knowledge.

As Smolčić explained for the ERC website, there were more than a few unknowns in the astrophysics field due, primarily to instrumental limitations at the time. But, in 2014, „Smolčić’s team was one of the first to use new and upgraded radio telescopes in Chile, USA, Australia, and India. These telescopes offered a higher level of accuracy for tracing star formations and detecting galaxies, stretching back to when the universe was very young“, writes ERC.

„While the observation phase was very time consuming, Smolčić was immediately taken aback by the extent of the data. She was not only probing new areas of Space, but she was observing radio wavelengths that no other scientist had been able to see through a telescope lens in such detail, or for so many galaxies. Three years down the line, her team had over 850 hours of data. They analyzed and assembled datasets (radio sky mosaics, data collections) on various types of galaxies, their sources, and physical properties. These datasets were made publicly available to the broader astronomy community, to be used by other scientists to explore more of the universe’s unknowns“, concludes ERC.

„ERC funding really allowed me to conduct my research at the highest competitive levels“, said Smolčić. And you can learn more about her work in this interesting podcast.

European Research Council was established in 2007. As they say themselves, their mission is to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven frontier research across all fields, based on scientific excellence.

„The ERC complements other funding activities in Europe such as those of the national research funding agencies, and is a flagship component of Horizon Europe, the European Union's Research Framework Programme for 2021 to 2027“, they said.

Learn more about Croatian inventions & discoveries: from Tesla to Rimac on our TC page.

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

ZAGREB, Aug 23, 2020 - Economy and Sustainable Development Minister Tomislav Coric said on Saturday that the government's job-keeping aid would be paid to enterprises and small businesses by the end of August, after entrepreneurs complained that most of the funds had not been paid.

"The funds for June and July will be paid by the end of this month. I talked today to my colleague (Labour Minister Josip) Aladrovic, and he confirmed this to me," Coric told the RTL broadcaster.

Earlier in the day, the Voice of Entrepreneurs association warned that entrepreneurs and small businesses had not received job-keeping support for July and some even for June.

Coric said the reason for the delay was a somewhat more complex procedure compared to the first half of the year.

As for employers' announcements that Croatia was in for a wave of layoffs, Coric said that jobs in Croatia "have been defended much better than in most European countries."

He added that the government would continue supporting economic sectors that would continue experiencing problems, which, he said, would depend on the intensity of the economic crisis.

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ZAGREB, June 19, 2020 - Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Friday that the billions of euros intended for Croatia in the EU's plan for recovery from the coronavirus crisis were not in question despite objections from some member-countries to the €750 billion plan.

At a virtual meeting to be held on Friday, EU leaders will discuss for the first time the Next Generation EU recovery plan and a proposal for the new seven-year budget, worth 1,850 billion euros in total.

The value of the recovery plan of €750 billion, proposed by the European Commission, is opposed by the so-called frugal four - Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

More than ten billion euros has been intended for Croatia for a period of four years, of which three-quarters are grants and one-quarter are favourable loans.

Speaking ahead of today's video-conference, Plenkovic said that the funds intended for Croatia were not at risk.

"Definitely not. I think that we can be satisfied considering that the criteria by which the EC was guided were rather comprehensive, and it is also a fact that the two most influential countries, Germany and France, have supported (EC President) Ursula von der Leyen's proposal," Plenkovic told reporters.

"I think that the final agreement will be very close to what is on the table today. I do not expect any major changes."

ZAGREB, June 8, 2020 - Last year was one of the best years for investment funds with the value of their assets exceeding HRK 26 billion and this year despite the obvious fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic. the sector has been significantly maturing, it was said at the Top of the Funds award ceremony on Monday.

President of the association of companies for the management of investment funds within the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, (HGK) Hrvoje Krstulovic underlined that 2019 was one of the best years for investment funds and capital market with Undertaking for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) funds increasing by 18.5% to HRK 22.5 billion and a jump in alternative investment funds of 14.5%  to HRK 4.2 billion.

Those two figures, combined together, give the number of HRK 26.8 billion which is almost equal to the value of assets at the end of 2007, said Krstulovic.

Despite the crisis in 2020, 95% of physical entities retained their investments in funds, he explained and the decrease that has been recorded mostly relates to institutional investors, he said.

He underlined that a significant maturity has occurred in the entire sector from clients, to sales processes and on to regulators.

The strongest effect of the coronavirus epidemic was recorded in March when the value of assets of investment funds fell by 30% however in April an increase of 1.4% was recorded and the total value of UCITS funds at the end of April amounted to HRK 15.9 billion.

Top of the Funds awards in five categories

The Top of the Funds awards for the best management of investment funds in 2019 was conferred to Intercapital Bond for the best equity open-end investment fund (UCITS) while the best mixed open-end investment fund award went to Allianz Portfolio. The best open-ended investment fund was awarded to PBZ Equity while the particular open-ended investment fund award went to Intercapital Income Plus.

There are currently 23 companies managing investment funds in Croatia.