January the 8th, 2021 - The Croatian Pension Insurance Institute (HZMO) has introduced a set of new digital services for their users and for employers, including something called e-requests (e-zahtjevi).

As Poslovni Dnevnik wrires, on Tuesday, the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute enabled a new e-service (e-zahtjev) intended for the registration or changes and updates when it comes to data logged in regard to insurance periods and bases.

This new service is called the eMPP-1 form and it is used to collect any of the missing data needed to be logged within the system in order to exercise the right to obtain and access a pension. This e-service is intended for Croatia's employers and represents an extension of the existing e-business service previously introduced by the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute for the establishment of e-applications called Lana. Lana establishes e-applications based on the start, change and termination of the employment of Croatia's taxpayers as well as e-applications on the start, change and termination of insurance of insured individuals.

More information on the changes and updates now available for users and employers has been made readily available on the Croatian Pension Insurance Insititute's official website.

On December the 30th last year, the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute also enabled the submission of five e-requests for the exercising of Croatian pension insurance rights. Specifically, these are e-requests for old-age/early old-age pension, disability pension, temporary disability pension, survivor's pension and more. Potential users can access e-requests using their security level three credentials, such as an m / Token or Internet banking access data, included in the useful e-citizens (e-gradjani) system. More information is available on the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute's website.

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.

ZAGREB, Dec 14, 2020 - The Croatian Pension Insurance Fund (HZMO)  will start accepting applications by elderly persons for the right to a national pension as of tomorrow, and about 20,000 beneficiaries who will receive HRK 800 per month are expected next year, Minister Josip Aladrovic said on Monday.

The law on a national allowance for the elderly, which enters into force on 1 January 2021, provides for an income for Croatian citizens over the age of 65 who have not secured an old age income and are not entitled to a pension.

The allowance will be paid by the HZMO  through commercial banks, and first payments will be made in February 2021 for January 2021.

The national allowance for the elderly will cover the most vulnerable part of the population, Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy Minister Josip Aladrovic told reporters ahead of a government session.

The estimated cost in the state budget is HRK 132 million, and we have ensured that much for 2021, he said.

It will be possible to submit an application for the national allowance in person at a regional HZMO office, by mail or online through the e-Citizen system.

Aladrovic said that the target group were elderly citizens who did not have enough years of insurance and who were not covered by the social welfare system for some reason.

Those are citizens who have more than 20 years of uninterrupted residence in the Republic of Croatia, fewer than 15 years of pensionable service and who are over 65 years of age, he said.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 20th of September, 2020, assistant Minister of Labour, Melita Cicak, recently stated that "everything is ready for the introduction of the national benefit for the elderly", referring to the pre-election promise of HDZ from 2016 which was once referred to as a ''national pension'' before being changed.

This refers to a monthly allowance of 800 kuna for citizens over the age of 65 who haven't, for whatever reason, acquired the right to a regular pension. The project was met with both praise and criticism, writes Net.hr. Dr.sc. Danijel Nestic from the Institute of Economics in Zagreb believes that there will not be many beneficiaries of this so called ''national pension'' fee.

"Overall, we shouldn't expect a larger number of completely new beneficiaries and therefore the impact on poverty among the elderly will be extremely limited. It shouldn't be forgotten that very ambitious announcements were made, that there was talk of a ''national pension'', but over time these ambitions fell, and the word ''pension'' was dropped because both experts and pensioners' associations were against the name being used in the sense of benefits like this, which in actual fact is social assistance,'' said Nestic.

Nestic believes that some will choose this form of compensation instead of the guaranteed minimum compensation because it isn't possible to receive both, but he doesn't see it as a threat to the pension system.

"The national benefit for the elderly belongs to the social welfare system and the social welfare centres have the knowledge and resources to implement it," said Nestic, adding: "This benefit is still lower than the lowest pension, and it will be received by people who have really low or absolutely no income. After all, social assistance has existed in the social welfare system for a long time now and is paid in similar amounts, so it can't be said that it has called the fairness of the pension system into question,'' he said.

The National Allowance for the Elderly Act, passed last spring, will enter into force on January the 1st, 2021, and all procedures related to it will go through the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute (HZMO).

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.

A more digital Croatia is on the horizon and a farewell to taking entire days off work to wait in pointless queues only to be told incorrect information by a poorly trained clerk could be closer than ever. The Croatian Pension Insurance Institute (HZMO) is another Croatian institution set to place a great big ''E'' in front of its services, and it can't happen soon enough.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes on the 7th of March, 2020, the tender for the first two phases of the digitisation of HZMO is now over, and the tender(s) for the following two phases is expected in the last quarter of this year.

The project, named the Modernisation of ICT Support of the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute (HZMO) - or eHZMO, according to director Ivan Serdar, is one of the largest in the entire history of the institution, which truly isn't difficult to believe.

The Institute uses all available tools and channels in its communication, but it still uses traditional methods far more often than it uses modern ones.

''The Institute's large daily data processing system, which continuously caters to more than 1.5 million insured persons, more than 1.2 million pension beneficiaries and more than 150 thousand child allowance users (for more than 300 thousand children), requires modern information and communication technologies. That's why we launched the project and the EU recognised it by awarding more than 144 million kuna in grants for it,'' says Serdar.

The restructuring of HZMO's administration is a necessary step in the points of order launched by this project, especially since some processes date from the early 1980's and rely heavily on the concept of paper documents circulation, which is incredibly embarrassing when application solutions should absolutely cover the paper process exclusively in this day and age.

Unfortunately, the same can be said for the majority of institutions operating within the Republic of Croatia and that is why a digital Croatia that can drag the country into the 21st century is desperately needed. The country holding the rotating EU Presidency asking people for stamps and to take numbers and wait in line? It's more than just a little bit shameful.

As previously stated, the tenders for the first two phases of the project have now been completed and the evaluation of the submitted bids is currently in progress, but for the second two phases - which regards the implementation of the new IT system to cope with basic and support processes, the announcement is expected in the last quarter of 2020 and 145.3 million kuna has been secured for it.

Strengthening efficiency

The project, which is to be officially announced next week, claims to have a significant impact on the efficiency of internal IT processes, which will consequently significantly increase the quality of service to all users. “In layman's terms, it will reduce paperwork and red tape for users in exercising their rights through new and improved e-services.

It will then fully digitise the processes and all of the documentation, and by digitising, HZMO will transform existing processes and rearrange them so that the same or better results are achieved in a much more efficient way.

While it's rather embarrassing that so many processes and procedures in Croatia aren't digitised, it's great to see that a digital Croatia now appears to be closer to reality than it ever has been before.

Make sure to follow our dedicated lifestyle page for more on digital Croatia.

Croatia's employment issues are somewhat perplexing to many, and although there has apparently been a massive drop in unemployment, there's only been a very slight jump in those registering as newly employed. The maths doesn't always really add up, but unfortunately the demographic picture of the country explains it all.

As Jadranka Dozan/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 10th of April, 2019, at this time of year, official data on employment levels tends to heavily reflect the huge levels of seasonality Croatia's labour market is affected by with every passing year, of course, this is primarily owing to the increased employment levels of seasonal workers before the start of the main tourist season in summer. The latest figures from HZMO (Croatian Pension Insurance Fund) from March show some growth in the number of insured persons, both on a monthly and an annual basis, with positive annual rates having continued to some degree or another since March 2015, while monthly growth began in only in February, according to analysts from Raiffeisen Bank (RBA).

Last month, the number of insured persons increased by 14,000, to a total of 1.52 million people, and it is realistic to expect that the number of insured persons will increase even more owing to the opening up of seasonal positions in preparation for the tourist season, an economic trend which could easily continue until September. When compared to March last year, the number of insured persons more than 32,000 or 2.2 percent higher.

Along with the pretty positive indicators from HZMO's labour market information, the Croatian Bureau of Statistic's labour force surveys are more in line with the process of the huge problem of the mass emigration of Croatia's fit, healthy, working-age population and the demographic of an aging general population. The latest survey, in which the last quarter of 2018 was included, indicates an annual drop in Croatia's working-age population from 3.54 to 3.52 million.

Those who are economically active in Croatia, whether they're already working or actively looking for a job, numbered just 1.8 million at the end of 2018, which is 42,000 people or 2.3 percent less than the year before. Despite the positive economic data, the activity rate dropped from 52 to 51 percent. Activity and employment rates have, at least for some time now, been indicative of much more than just the general rate of unemployment. This applies in particular to activities that are needed in more economically developed EU countries, and jobs that tend to be given to (highly) skilled staff.

Economists have been warning for a long time that recent developments in reduce the potential for growth in Croatia in the long term. The number of unemployed people in Croatia in the last quarter of the year, according to the results of the survey conducted in the last quarter of 2018, dropped when compared to the previous year by 46,000 people, or 23 percent, to 154,000 people. At the same time, however, the number of employees increased only very slightly, by 0.3 percent, meaning just 5,000 people more, to 1.64 million. In the fourth quarter, the activity rate and the employment rate recorded lower values ​​(51 percent and 46.6 percent), according to RBA.

In the last quarter of 2018, the numbers of economically inactive people older than fifteen increased by just one percent. Finally, the year ended with the fall of Croatia's unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, which is also the first drop below 10 percent since 2009, the year which followed the 2008 recession, but unfortunately this is partly a consequence of Croatia's negative demographic trend.

Although Croatia's growth in employment is of course very encouraging, analysts warn that it should be noted that the number of employees has been growing at a mild rate for the last five years, and that the average number of employees is still 6.5 percent lower than in before the crisis back in 2008. Overall, they conclude, Croatia's labour market remains very fragile and is burdened with some extremely serious structural problems, especially in terms of the total mismatch of supply and demand, long-term unemployment, and the falling number of working-age people for the ninth year in a row.

Make sure to follow our dedicated politics and business pages for much more.

Click here for the original article by Jadranka Dozan for Poslovni Dnevnik