ZAGREB, Dec 19, 2020 - The Supreme Court has dismissed a motion to review a Zagreb County Court ruling in favour of a Geology Institute employee who sued her employer over the non-payment of a base pay rise under an agreement dating back to the Ivo Sanader cabinet, Jutarnji List reported on Saturday.

This means the state risks being sued by many public sector employees which would cost the budget by over HRK 2 billion if the government does not reach an agreement with the unions which have already filed pilot lawsuits, all of which have been ruled in their favour, the daily said.

The pilot lawsuits have been filed over the non-payment of a 6% base pay rise in 2016 to which the Sanader cabinet committed in 2006. The global financial crisis followed, and the government and unions agreed in 2011 that the base pay would rise by 6% annually when GDP increased by 2% or more year on year over two consecutive quarters.

Said increase occurred in 2015, yet the government and the State Bureau of Statistics claimed that the GDP increase had not gone up by 2% but that, for the first time, they rounded it up to four decimals and that the increase was therefore 1.9998%.

That was when the first pilot lawsuits were filed. The Preporod union claims that 400 have been ruled in workers' favour and that 170,000 public sector employees could eventually benefit from this. Courts have awarded them amounts ranging from HRK 5,500 to 9,000.

On September 3, the education ministry ordered schools to initiate reviews if they lost the lawsuits. The ministry's position is that the prerequisites for applying the 2006 agreement were not met, given that it stipulates the deferral of the rise by as many quarters as GDP decreased, and that the rise therefore should have occurred only in January 2019, the newspaper said.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)

October 10, 2020 – The Nautical Patrol of Jutarnji list awarded the “Zlatno sidro“ ("Golden Anchor") awards to Croatian marinas, according to the surveyed boaters. This year, ACI Marina Cres was voted as the best.

As Jutarnji list reports, their Nautical patrol sailed around the most important Croatian marinas on the Adriatic for the fourth year in a row. This floating editorial office, as they are also called, witnessed how top-notch nautical tourism persisted, if not increased, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Once this was affirmed, it was time to reward the best marinas based on many survey questionnaires in which boaters expressed their impressions of the marinas in which the Patrol would find them. They passed 32 marinas and 22 anchorages and small coves.

Exceptional marinas

This year, at a ceremony in Skradin, the prestigious Nautical Patrol Award of Jutarnji list "Zlatno sidro" ("Golden anchor") was given to ACI Marina Cres, which won the most votes of satisfied sailors who said that this marina excels in its beauty, infrastructure, and hospitality.

The recognition for the development of elite nautical tourism in Croatia went to the ACI Marina Dubrovnik, which delighted its guests with its sports content.

The oldest Croatian marina, the one in Punat on the island of Krk, received a prestigious award for its exceptional contribution to the development of Croatian nautical tourism. Namely, this marina is a favorite for guests because of its exceptional investment in high technology, such as surveillance applications with which every sailor can instantly check the condition of their boat via their mobile phone.

Marina Vrsar won second place as a beautiful, safe, and friendly marina, and third place went to Marina Tribunj, thanks to its peace, quiet, and discretion.

Vrsar / Copyright Romulić and Stojčić

Special recognitions

A special recognition “Dragulj Jadrana“ ("Jewel of the Adriatic") was given to the great Mediterranean park of Marina Sutomišćica on the island of Ugljan. Also, ACI Marina Opatija received a special award called “Zlatni osmijeh Jadrana“ ("Golden Smile of the Adriatic") for the kindness of their staff and their willingness to help.

Although the Nautical Patrol did not find any cases of coronavirus infection in any marina, they still introduced a special recognition for the safest corona-free marina, ACI Marina Šimuni. It is located in a quiet bay in Pag with excellent nautical comfort and it consistently implemented corona protection measures.

Opatija, a pioneer of Croatian tourism / ACI Marina Opatija received a special award for the kindness of their staff / Copyright Romulić and Stojčić

"Green and blue Croatia"

This year, the Nautical Patrol of Jutarnji list, in addition to nautical marinas, also visited nearby family farms (OPGs), thus connecting "blue" and "green" Croatia.

Numerous family farms at the time of the corona adapted their business, such as family farms that deliver fresh fruits, vegetables, honey, and other products (even roasted meat) directly to the ship. That is why this year, for the first time, Đorđe Studić from Vodice, whose family farm of the same name received the most comments from readers of the Jutarnji.hr portal, was given the special "Biser zelene magistrale" ("Pearl of the Green Highway") award.

'Adriatic was safe throughout the summer'

"In this challenging period, we managed to find our way to the readers, we started the action in April, we showed the sustainability of this branch of tourism with arguments. This was recognized by our partners, so we received broad support from nautical tourism stakeholders, there were, for example, more than last year," said the editor-in-chief of Jutarnji list Goran Ogurlić, adding that the Nautical Patrol consisted of 16 crew members, who worked the whole summer in four shifts.

ACI Marina Vrsar won second place as a beautiful, safe, and friendly marina / Copyright Romulić and Stojčić

"The marinas are well organized, all the recommendations of the National Civil Protection Headquarters have been respected. So we can clearly and with experience say that we are living health proof that the Adriatic has been safe throughout the summer, with responsible behavior," concluded the editor-in-chief.

The leader of the Patrol and the author of this successful project, Mladen Gerovac, says that the fourth edition of the Patrol was difficult to organize due to special conditions, but they still succeeded.

"Our floating editorial office proved that even during the pandemic, there is nautical tourism and that our floating guests trust us," said Gerovac.

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ZAGREB, Aug 21, 2020 - The Finance Ministry has put up for public consultation documents for amending four taxation laws: income tax, profit tax, and Value Added Tax laws and legislation on fiscal receipts in cash flow, the Jutarnji List daily said on Friday.

The finance ministry recalls its promises on the continuation of the reduction of the tax burden and underlines that the income tax legislation will be amended with the aim of facilitating efforts to increase the amount of after-tax available income to citizens.

To this aim, the income tax brackets will be lowered: the current 36% will be scaled down to 30%, 24% to 20%, and 12% to 10%, and the changes could go into force in early 2021.

This move will increase the available income after tax from 100 kunas for lower wages to 800 kunas for the highest gross monthly wages.

The profit tax is likely to be cut from the current 12% to 10% for small and medium-sized companies with the annual earnings up to 7.5 million.

The national VAT regulations are going to be adjusted to the European Union's directives.

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ZAGREB, Aug 19, 2020 - About 6,500 children in Zagreb will not be able to return to their own schools once the school year starts on September 7 because of the damage caused to school buildings by the March 22 earthquake, the Jutarnji List daily reported on Wednesday.

Damage caused by the quake was identified on 175 school and kindergarten buildings with 91 buildings being repaired to date.

Works are continuing on an additional 82 buildings and 69 of these should be ready for the new school year. Twelve schools, however -- five elementary and seven secondary schools -- were seriously damaged in the quake and are not safe for use hence students from those schools will have to be relocated to other schools which until now had lessons in only one shift.

Another school that was being reconstructed in any case brings the number of schools that will be relocated to thirteen.

Some elementary school pupils will have to attend schools in other suburbs and the city authorities have organised transport for 1,923 pupils, however, a decision has not been delivered on seating arrangements in school buses, considering the epidemiological situation, the Jutranji List reported.

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ZAGREB, Aug 16, 2020 - As many as 40% of municipalities in rural areas in Croatia do not have daycare institutions for infants and toddlers, the Jutarnji List daily recently reported.

Parents who have children with disabilities are even in a worse situation since only 11.2% of rural municipalities have the appropriate daycare institutions for such pre-school children.

Furthermore, a mere, 5.4% of rural municipalities have daycare centres for adults with disabilities.

Those are the findings of a survey conducted in 215 municipalities with a population fewer than 10,000 by researchers Gordana Berc, Slavica Blazeka Kokoric, and Ana Opacak. The results of their research were presented by the Zagreb-based daily newspaper last Friday.

ZAGREB, Aug 15, 2020 - The European Commission will provide support for 23 new COVID-19 research projects in the amount of €128 million as part of the response to the coronavirus pandemic, and Croatian scientists are participating in three projects, the Jutarnji List daily reported in its August 13 issue.

A total of 347 scientific teams from 40 countries are involved in the 23 chosen projects, including 34 participants from 16 countries outside the European Union. One of the projects is SHARE COVID, a study of social, health, and economic effects of COVID-19 on persons over the age of 50, in which Croatian scientists have also been involved.

The Faculty of Business and Economics in Zagreb is a partner on the project, and the work package dedicated to the quality of health care is led by Sime Smolic. The main goal of this project is to understand the unplanned effects of pandemic and devise improved health, economic, and social policies.

"In this project specifically we are monitoring how people over the age of 50 are coping with the effect of the lockdown and how it will affect them. Later, we will be able to compare these data with the 2008 crisis research, since we surveyed the same people then, so the data are comparable," Smolic said.

The second project on which Croatian scientists are working is a completely new project, Envision. The project is about smart digital monitoring of COVID-19 patients in real-time, which facilitates decision-making in intensive care units.

The third project involving Croatia is called unCoVer, and it is being implemented in cooperation with 29 European partners, while the project leader is the Institute of Tropical Medicine.

The funding will enable scientists to help contain the pandemic and its impact by strengthening the industry's ability to produce and use already available solutions, by developing medical technology and digital tools, by having a better insight into the behavioral and socioeconomic effects of the pandemic and by studying large groups of patients across Europe, the Jutarnji List daily said.

ZAGREB, Aug 10, 2020 - The number of births in 2019 was higher than the number of deaths in only ten out of 128 towns in Croatia, says the Monday issue of Jutarnji List daily.

Figures provided by the national statistical office show that the number of births was higher than the number of deaths in Opuzen, Imotski, Kastela, Novigrad/Cittanova, Zapresic, Cakovec, Korcula, Solin, Pazin and Metkovic. Among those communities, only one is a bigger town, Cakovec.

As for county capitals, the most negative demographic trends were recorded in Vukovar, where last year only 194 children were born while the number of deaths was 405.

Zadar fares the best, having almost the same number of births and deaths, 686 and 705 respectively.

There were no new births in four communities - Ervenik and Kijevo in Sibenik-Knin County, Sucuraj in Split-Dalmatia County, and Ribnik in Karlovac County.

Collective data shows that 36,135 children were born in Croatia in 2019 - the lowest number since 1900, when demographic record-keeping started, while 51,784 people died.

Not counting emigration, Croatia's population in 2019 shrank by the size of a town like Porec.

The vitality index, which shows the number of births per 100 deaths, is 69.8 in Croatia. Not one county had a vitality index exceeding 100.

The number of births has been decreasing steadily since the mid-1990s while the number of deaths has been more or less stagnating.

Preliminary data for 2020 warn that the negative trends will continue - in the first six month of this year there were 150 fewer births than in the same period last year, the daily says.

ZAGREB, Aug 7, 2020 - According to a poll by the Promocija Plus agency, there are changes in the balance of power among political parties a month after a parliamentary election but not at the top, Jutarnji List daily said on Friday.

The election winner, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), is the most popular party (32.9%).

The Social Democratic Party is second (18.1%) and the We Can! platform third (11%), replacing the Homeland Movement, which now ranks fourth (8.6%). Bridge is next (8.3%), followed by the Party with a First and Last Name (2.6%).

Pametno, the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), and the Istrian Democratic Party (IDS) have a little over 1% in approval ratings.

The most popular politician is Prime Minister and HDZ leader Andrej Plenkovic for 24.5% of respondents, up from 19.4% in June, followed by President Zoran Milanovic with 11.3% (15.3% in June), Finance Minister Zdravko Maric with 4.5% (2.2% in June) and Health Minister Vili Beros with 4.3%(8.1% in June).

The poll shows that 15.3% of respondents have no favourite politician.

The most negative politician is President Milanovic, followed by Prime Minister Plenkovic and Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic.

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ZAGREB, Aug 1, 2020 - The speech by Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) MP Anja Simpraga in the Croatian parliament, in which she described how she had experienced Operation Storm as a child "from the other side", has attracted great attention because seldom has parliament heard accounts of the Croatian military offensive by members of the Serb minority, Jutarnji List daily said on Saturday.

Although the Croatian public, thanks to independent media and the Hague war crimes tribunal, was aware almost from day one of what was happening during the Croatian liberation operation, including war crimes committed by some Croatian army troops, this speech drew attention to the reasons why it is difficult for the Serb minority in Croatia to participate in celebrations of Operation Storm anniversaries, the newspaper said.

"You can see for yourselves in what kind of society we live in, how young people are growing up," Simpraga told Jutarnji List about her motives to address parliament and the public in such a personal speech.

"The fact that I have a chance to describe the circumstances in which I found myself as well as many other children motivated me to say loud and clear what I said from the parliament rostrum," she said.

Almost paraphrasing General Ante Gotovina after his release from the Hague tribunal's detention unit, Simpraga said: "It's time for us to move on and realise that we no longer live in the war."

Simpraga is the deputy head of Sibenik-Knin County. She entered parliament as a substitute for Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic.

Operation Storm crushed a Serb armed insurgency in central and southern parts of Croatia in August 1995, effectively ending the 1991-1995 war. The operation will be commemorated with a ceremony in Knin, the main Serb stronghold during the war, on August 5, and Deputy PM Milosevic will be attending.

A progress report from Bozo Petrov.