ZAGREB, 6 Aug 2021 - Croatia on Friday sent a firefighting plane to Greece to help in putting out disastrous wildfires that have spread despite efforts by local firefighters, reaching Athens.
The Defence Ministry said a Croatian Air Force Canadair CL-415 plane with nine crew on board left for Greece around 2pm. The ministry made the decision on the deployment of aircraft following consultations with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and based on a request from Greece. Another Croatian Air Force crew is in Turkey, helping put out wildfires in that country.
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During surveillance of the European Union's maritime border with Turkey, as part of the Frontex Poseidon mission, four naval officers from Dubrovnik, Croatia rescued 36 migrants from an unmanned dinghy in the Aegean Sea on February 10, according to Dubrovnik police who were monitoring the area.
A migrant dinghy was observed in the area from the Evros (Marica) river delta heading toward Makri, Greece. Cries were heard from the small inflatable vessel, and officers immediately came to the rescue.
"They found 36 foreign nationals on the dinghy, including five children, 11 women and 20 men. All were in poor health: chilled, dehydrated and some were unconscious. The inflatable had run out of fuel and the sea temperature where they were found was only 2 degrees Celsius. It is difficult to say what might have happened to them had they not been rescued,” the Dubrovnik-Neretva Police Department pointed out.
The migrants were transported to a police vessel where officers provided them with water, hot drinks and thermal foil to warm them, after which they were transported to the port of Alexandropolis. They were met there and put under the care of the Emergency Medical Service according to Index on February 14, 2020.
"Out of the 36 migrants, five were hospitalized, while the rest, after receiving medical assistance, were transported to a reception center following further treatment in accordance with national and European legislation," the Dubrovnik police added.
Following more than 60,000 arrivals last year, more than 4,100 refugees and migrants have reached Greek shores so far in 2020.
Recently, the Croatian parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs and National Security unanimously decided to conduct direct oversight of Croatian police work following complaints about the police treatment of migrants, Committee Chairman Ranko Ostojić (SDP) told the press after the committee meeting on February 6, 2020.
An archive of Total Croatia News coverage on the migrant crisis in Croatia can be accessed here.
As Mirela Lilek/Novac writes on the 27th of April, 2019, Croatia's situation still isn't good: the country is continuing to ''produce'' graduates with the third lowest employment rate in the whole of the European Union, and as a result, taxpayers pay more and more money for them. According to new data from Brussels, based on a comparative survey of youth employment among Croats with diplomas earned in the last three years, a third of highly educated people aged between 20 to 34 in Croatia have no jobs. Only Italy and Greece are worse.
Of the 28 countries EU member states, Croatia ranked 26th with a 66 percent employability rate. Four positions above Croatia lies Romania, Bulgaria is six places above, and Slovakia is nine places above. Croatia's neighbour to the north, Slovenia, is eleven places above Croatia, Poland is thirteen places above (impressively right behind Ireland and Denmark), and the Czech Republic, with an 89.9 percent employability rate which has impressed the European Commission's experts - has risen to an enviable fourth place.
Malta is in first place in Europe as an employer of its graduates with diplomas, the employment rate of Maltese students stands at a very impressive 94.5 percent, even better than Germany, which boasts a rate of 90.9 percent, followed then by the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and then Austria. The EU average is on the rise, back in 2014 it stood at 76 percent and in 2018 it stood at 80.2 percent. Unfortunately, the Croats have been close to the bottom for years, more specifically for fifteen years, as it has a below-average rate of employability in relation to the EU. Of course, rather than attempt to fix the problem directly, the Croats are doing what the Croats always do - continuing to debate and argue over who is (more) to blame for such embarrassing conditions.
Economists see the issue as being that the Croats aren't adapting easily to the market, and that Croatia also has an old education system. At Croatia's universities, they argue that the key issue isn't Croatia's higher education institutions, but an underdeveloped labour market, low personal income, and demotivating working conditions. Experts from the European Commission have given a relatively simple answer: Investing in education will benefit everyone in Europe.
Let's see how they explain their theories in some of the country's universities, starting with the largest "producers" of graduates in the entire country, the Faculty of Philosophy and Economics in Zagreb.
''We're aware of the importance of linking study programs and labour market needs. In this regard, the Faculty of Economics makes an effort to make it easier for students to access the labour market by establishing multilateral cooperation with companies and respectable institutions that enable students to perform high-quality professional practices,'' stated Sanja Sever Mališ, who deals with strategic partnerships and projects at the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb. The basic message from this particular Zagreb university is that "they connect students and employers so their best students can find work even during their studies." Therefore, there is no concern for them.
On the other hand, Vesna Vlahović-Štetić, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, admits that Croatia's humiliating placement at the bottom of the employability scale of graduates is still something to be very concerned about and therefore the causes of that need to be looked at.
''I assume that part of the problem lies in insufficient development and the ability of the economy and the public sector to absorb newly graduated students. On the other hand, the question is how many colleges and higher education institutions meet the needs of society with their respective programs. At the state level, in some professions there's hyper-production, and in others there is a lack of experts. Additionally, study programs should be regularly updated and developed to meet not only society's needs but also predict what competences professionals will need in the future,'' the dean says.
Data obtained through the HKO project of the Faculty of Philosophy shows that the employability of their students in the year after graduation is 75 percent. They believe this is the result of "the excellent professional and generic competences of their graduates".
"We're convinced at the Faculty of Philosophy that the study programs need to be further improved, so we have just started the study reform process and I'm sure the future employability of our students will be even better," says the university's dean.
The rector of the University of Rijeka, Snježana Prijić Samaržija, doesn't want to run away from the fact that Croatia's universities do hold a share of the responsibility for this issue but, again, she's convinced that Croatia's higher education institutions are't the key cause of the problem, but the underdeveloped labour market definitely is.
Rijeka University has eleven faculties and four departments. On their official page, they point out that they are a modern European university and a centre of excellence within the region and beyond, and that they are responsible for the social and economic development of the community. Samardžija claims that she doesn't want to relate the worrying data on the high rate of unemployed with higher education, but that "it should be borne in mind that higher education is a better job-finding guarantee, such as landing a permanent position,"
"Of course, it's possible to say that the employment rate would be higher if universities, by some automation, increased their quotas for the job-type deficit and reduced those profiles for which the employment bureaus take care of. In that sense, people often say Croatia's institutions and their enrollment policies aren't adapted to the labour market. However, the situation isn't quite that simple.
For example, the market seeks shipbuilding engineers, we have shipbuilding studies and a corresponding quota at the University of Rijeka, but there's a fall in interest for those studies. We can understand the students' fears about the situation with Croatia's shipyards, but the fact is that the need for this profession is still growing. Similarly, despite the lack of mathematics and physics teachers and the excellent studies we have, the interest doesn't match the employment opportunities,'' she explained.
The University of Rijeka decided to put seven studies ''into retirement'' this year, and isn't accepting students for them. Those are acting and media, dental hygiene, computer science in combination with professional studies of medical-lab diagnostics, mechanical engineering, shipbuilding, and electrical engineering.
On the other hand, there's a considerable level of interest in studies that don't guarantee quick and permanent employment at all, such as the arts, cultural studies, and psychology.
''Young people choose studies according to their personal interests, not just employment opportunities. They don't necessarily just want a permanent job, many of them are accustomed to gaining work experience in different institutions, at different places of work, and in different countries. More and more, they prefer to individually define the curriculum through courses and practical competences beyond their study program(s), which will make their expertise comparatively more special and desirable. In the midst of a sluggish and non-ethnological labour market, more and more students enjoy prolonged youthful relationships with their parents or rent apartments,'' says Snježana Prijić Samaržija.
"I don't want to run away from the responsibility of the university, we're constantly thinking about the jobs of the future, we're working on increasing the quota for the deficit professions and improving our students' competences to reduce the unemployment rate. However, time is needed to see the results of these measures because the higher education cycle lasts for at least five years. It should be understood that universities can't just simply increase quotas for occupations for which there's a labour market need because new employment is frozen,'' noted the Rector of the University of Rijeka.
As Croatia's paradoxical situation of having no work but plenty of jobseekers, yet plenty of work and no staff, it's hard to predict the outcome of education system reforms as the market and its needs can alter so rapidly. Will Croatian students simply continue to trickle away on the stream of a proverbial leaking tap out into Western Europe, leaving Croatia with the rather unenviable title of a country that educates its citizens for work abroad? It's likely such a scenario will continue at least for the foreseeable future. Whether or not Croatia will manage to make the necessary alterations to fix that aforementioned ''leaky tap'' in time remains to be seen.
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Click here for the original article by Mirela Lilek for Novac/Jutarnji
As Morski writes on the 19th of April, 2019, Croatia's nautical tourism season has already started, beginning about a month ago and lasts the longest of all, for about eight months in total. What can be expected this season and whether or not the Greeks have taken away part of what would have been Croatian guests due to the Greek state's measures, are just a couple of the issues that Robert Pende, an assistant in the Croatian Ministry of Tourism, Roko Vuletić, the president of HUP's nautical sector and the Croatian Chamber of Commerce's Sean Lisjak discussed on HTV's "Good morning, Croatia" show.
Robert Pende stated the nautical season has just begun, and so far we have room to be satisfied and we can expect the season to be on the same level as last year.
Vuletić said that according to field information, the data isn't so great.
"We're the leaders in the world in one segment of nautical tourism, and that's renting a boat without a crew. We're receiving information from our colleagues who have charter agencies that some existing reservations have been canceled due to Croatia's price increases, which has been a big trend in recent years, although charter agencies raised their prices the least, given the growth of offers and competition,'' said Vuletić.
He added that guests are increasingly looking for package deals and that there are less and less classic nautical guests - they're wanting to have a whole package, from airline transfers, accommodation, gastronomic offers, and all of that has increased in price, including in marinas.
''In combination with the announced recession, people are becoming more cautious about what they're spending, they want to go to new destinations, and Greece and Turkey are growing rapidly,'' he said.
Lisjak said he was not afraid about people cancelling their reservations, he stated that Croatia's nautical tourism sector is a vigorous activity and in the last fifteen years Croatia has had continuity. He added that Croatia needs to be careful because new markets are opening their doors that have recently been avoided for security and various other reasons. He added that believes that if Croatia manages to accomplish last year's results despite all of that, then it can be satisfied.
He said that Croatia made 860 billion kuna from tourism last year and added that a way should be found to allow existing investors to invest in marinas.
He noted that a certain drop in transit has been recorded with the aforementioned Croatian price increases, adding that Croatia does have to be careful with its pricing policy and that the country needs to focus on being as competitive as possible.
Vuletić believes that boosting advertising activities on new markets needs to be done. Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are Croatia's traditional markets, and the country should turn to the growing American or Scandinavian market, reports HRT.
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The Republic of Croatia is in a group of four European Union member states with a lower uncovered demand for workers when compared to one year earlier. The Croatian paradox of staff fighting over workers who either don't exist or don't want to work, while would-be staff complain about there being no jobs continues.
As Ana Blaskovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 19th of March, 2019, the workforce problem is rapidly becoming one of the most burning issues not only here in Croatia but across the European Union. In the last quarter of last year, Croatia ranked among the four EU member states with a lower uncovered demand for workers than was recorded during the same period last year, Eurostat figures show.
At the Union level, as well as at its very core in which the euro currency wains, the rate of vacancies grew to 2.3 percent during the fourth quarter of 2018. Just for comparison, this rate, which shows uncovered demand for labour, was 2.1 percent in the previous quarter, and 2.2 percent in the Eurozone.
The availability of labour in the last year has become the top theme for domestic employers. While a few years ago this issue was only mentioned from time to time, in the last surveys answered by business owners, it emerged at the very top of the list. In Poslovni Dnevnik's recent interview with AmCham, Andrea Doko Jelušić pointed out that when the last survey was taken, their members underlined this topic as the main constraining factor in 2018, while back in 2017, it was placed on the list for the first time ever.
Reflecting on the workforce as an inevitable issue of the competitiveness of the domestic economy, CNB/HNB Governor Boris Vujčić said on Monday that Croatia is specific in the EU because as many as 40 percent of working-age citizens don't work. "When looking at the employment rate, Croatia is the second worst in the European Union after Greece, which means that everyone else has to work harder to maintain the same level of living standards," said the governor.
The key to the mobilisation of this population, Vujčić believes, is to evaluate the positive changes in pension regulations which extend the working life. The EU and the Eurozone are currently experiencing the most problems with finding workers in the service sector, with the job vacancy rate standing at 2.6 percent. Industry and construction account for 2.1 percent in the EU, and 2 percent in the Eurozone. In Croatia, the vacancy rate in the fourth quarter fell to 1.4 percent, which was the lowest level in just over a year. The highest jump in labour demand for the same period last year was in the fourth quarter in the Czech Republic, Austria, Malta, and Germany.
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Click here for the original article by Ana Blaskovic for Poslovni Dnevnik
As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 12th of March, 2019, Croatia's hotel sector stagnated last year in terms of the number of new rooms and in the sense of the level of entry of foreign hotel brands. A lot of this, but of course not all of it, is because Croatia has deemed it more profitable to build and invest more in private accommodation, an often ''grey'' area of Croatia's tourism industry with much lower taxes and a very poor level of general regulation. The level of major investments in new hotel rooms has fallen significantly, the number of which grew by a mere one percent in one year.
Due to all the above mentioned conditions, the market is still dominated by local investors, quite a few new names have appeared on the scene in the last year, which are still to be properly positioned as hotel brands, according to the annual global report on hotel chains in 22 European countries, "European Chains & Hotels Report 2019" by the Horwath Consulting House HTL. In the Republic of Croatia, more than a quarter of these hotels, more specifically 186 of them, operate under 43 brands in total, of which 22 are local and 21 are international brands.
"High seasonality and an unfavourable environment for investors, especially with [granting the necessary] permits, are the main reason we're in 159th place on the Doing Business list, they're the biggest barriers for foreign investors, who find it difficult to decide on taking risks in developing projects in Croatia, although a few positive examples have occurred on the market which do lead to more optimism,'' stated Siniša Topalović from Horwath's Zagreb-based office.
Horwath's analysis, which is based on the numbers from Real Capital Analytic, only takes into account investments of more than 5 million dollars, reveals that investment in hotels in Croatia is down by as much as 90 percent, from 59 million euro to a mere 7 million euro.
''The growth of hotel brands in 2018 in Croatia (4 percent) should be observed through the proper placement of several local hotel names, and only time will reveal whether or not these names will be branded on the market,'' Topalović explained.
Additionally, although Croatia can be statistically put in a very good position in terms of the number of brands operating here, the market situation shows that the level of activity is lagging behind some countries which are considered to be weaker than Croatia. A good example of that is Serbia and its increasingly popular capital city of Belgrade, which has received 40 new hotels since 2014, with growth in the hotel sector in Belgrade mainly based on foreign investments and globally respected brands such as Crowne Plaza, Radisson Blu and Luxury Collection.
Although the RevPar (revenue per hotel room) rose by an average of 16 percent in Croatia in 2018, this year a slow down is expected, caused primarily by other Mediterranean countries which are recovering from their respective problems to return to the market (this includes longtime tourism kings like Turkey and Tunisia).
The main potential seems to lie outside of the height of the summer season. Along with Serbia, where further growth is expected in the hotel segment, Albania has some great potential for foreign investors, Albania currently has the smallest share of branded hotels per total number of rooms (2 percent), and Montenegro, Croatia's neighbour to the south, also offers investors fairly favourable investment conditions and is very active in encouraging a more luxurious tourist product for the country.
Greece, known for its numerous financial issues, has entered the world's top fifteen tourist destinations despite the country's somewhat infamous ups and downs, with 150 new luxury hotels ''born'' in Greece in 2018, becoming a destination in which more than one in five hotels is in the category of 4 or 5 stars. Last year, the largest amount of investments in hotels went from the United States across the Atlantic to Spain (2.1 billion euro), following came transactions from Israel to the United Kingdom totaling over one billion euro, French investors also invested 951 million euro into the United Kingdom.
Despite all of the potentially (and likely) damning economic risks from Brexit, one of the European continent's most powerful countries, the United Kingdom, had a total of nearly 4 billion euro in investment in its massive hotel business. In 22 countries from the Horwath analysis, there were a total of 146,600 hotels on the market last year with more than six million rooms, with an average of 61 rooms per hotel. The least-branded hotels had Albania, only 12, while France has 3885 hotels in the hotel chain.
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Click here for the original article by Marija Crnjak for Poslovni Dnevnik
Greek investor Petros Stathis has been visiting numerous institutions in order to complete the most luxurious tourist project in the Republic of Croatia, Amanresorts Cavtat, in Croatia's southernmost county of Konavle which borders Montenegro.
As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 13th of December, 2018, Greek investor Petros Stathis has re-activated matters over more recent days in regard to the eventual realisation of the Amanresorts project in Cavtat, otherwise being hailed as the most luxurious tourist project in the whole of Croatia, which could even end up making the list of strategic projects in the Republic of Croatia, which would be a useful move in terms of resolving the outstanding issues of spatial planning, among others, as soon as possible.
As a result of the large amount of paperwork involved in the process, the aforementioned investor has been heavily engaged in all of the required fields, from the state administration to the local administration, as Poslovni Dnevnik has unofficially published. The reactivation of the Amanresorts Cavtat project comes after more than three years after Amanresorts Cavtat was supposed to open its doors, but unfortunately encountered several stumbling blocks, mainly typically administrative ones, although Stathis never once gave up on it.
"I'm convinced that the Amanresorts Cavtat project will be successfully completed, and together with other Aman projects in the vicinity, Amanresorts Venice and Sveti Stefan (Montenegro), will become the star of the tourist sector of South East Europe," said Petros Stathis in the spring of 2015, when he explained why he was suddenly closing the Cavtat construction site.
He then stated that there were problems with the Bonvena Hotels company which was due to take care of the Cavtat project, which Stathis took over in the meantime, and that the entire chain of Amanresorts luxury resorts had gone through the process of ownership change.
For the realisation of the project, the investor is supposed to adapt the spatial planning documentation, and it's necessary to reach an agreement on various other factors, considering that the investor is seeking the closure of the beach below the area with his 30 million euro project.
The Municipality of Konavle didn't respond to Poslovni Dnevnik's question of what exactly they are willing, or unwilling, to offer to the investor in order to realise the Amanresorts Cavtat project. In addition, not even the investor himself, who has been investing in Montenegro in the meantime, has spoken publicly on the subject.
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Click here for the original article by Marija Crnjak for Poslovni Dnevnik
Croatia and Greece met for the second-leg of the World Cup playoffs in Piraeus, Greece on November 12, 2017.
Three Croatian women complete Spatathlon, 246 km race, one of the biggest ultra running races in the World! Veronika Jurišić takes fifth place!
You'll be surprised to read why...