Theresa May's withdrawal agreement with the European Union suffered a historic defeat recently. The British prime minister had delayed the vote which was due to take place back in December 2018 when she realised she was set to suffer the aforementioned historic defeat. Why she thought simply delaying the inevitable was a good idea is beyond me, but so is the entire notion of Brexit itself.

My political views aside, let's get to the point of this article. Point number one is that the article I wrote a while ago about what Theresa May's former withdrawal agreement means for British citizens living in Croatia is now likely void for the most part. We all love wasting our time, don't we?

The second point is that you don't need to worry about anything, well, no more than you would already anyway. You may have noticed that many EU countries have publicly declared their plans for making sure British citizens don't become Brexit's collateral damage (anymore than already, that is), and don't fall victim to the United Kingdom's bizarre desire to enact Brexit and leave the world's largest trading bloc. You're likely wondering why Croatia hasn't done so yet, at least not publicly. As Lance Corporal Jack Jones would have said: Don't panic.

Belgium, Italy, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands are just some of the EU countries to have come forward and assured Brits living and working in their countries that plans are firmly in place to make sure their lives go on undisrupted by this utter mess. That's a little too late for many after years of inexcusable limbo, but it's very welcome for many nonetheless.

But what about other countries, you might ask? What of, let's say, Romania? Romania has been eerily quiet on the matter despite having been given assurances that Romanian citizens living and working in the United Kingdom will remain protected and have their rights enshrined into UK law regardless of the Brexit outcome. The same assurances, with all due respect to Britain, have been given repeatedly to all other EU citizens legally residing in Britain. A new system has been set up which promises to be simple and as recent announcements have confirmed - totally free.

The UK has dropped its former demand for £65 for ''settled'' and ''pre-settled'' status after listening to the concerns of many, and EU citizens in the UK now have a very clear way of securing their rights before June 2021. The UK hasn't done much right since the non-binding referendum delivered a shock Leave result, but in making sure to put citizens and their acquired EU treaty rights first, it has been firm.

Everyone knows Croatia likes to drag its heels. It doesn't mean anything bad by it really, that's just what it does. That being said, it will gladly bow to whatever the EU asks of it, but in its own time. What do I mean by this? Well, to put it simply, MUP (Croatian Ministry of the Interior) has stated when asked (probably repeatedly) by Balkan Insight that there will be ''special rules'' in place for British citizens who have legal residence (biometric permit) in Croatia.

As Balkan Insight writes on the 22nd of January, 2019: ''The Interior Ministry in Croatia, which joined the EU in 2013, told BIRN that “special rules will be applied UK citizens who, on March 29, 2019, have regulated status of foreigner in the Republic of Croatia, which will allow [them] to maintain the right of residence.” But the ministry said it was “still developing in details the modalities of residence” of British citizens in Croatia after Brexit and how new documents would be issued.

The goal, it said, would be to allow British citizens and their families who have regulated status continued access, without restrictions, to the Croatian labour market. According to official data, currently 659 British citizens have regulated status in Croatia – 277 permanent residents and 382 with temporary residence.

The British embassy in Zagreb said it expected Croatia to reciprocate the commitment London made with regards the rights of citizens from the EU residing in Britain in the event of a no-deal scenario.''

So, what does this actually mean? It means that British citizens in Croatia can expect forthcoming reassurances like those which have been provided by a growing number of EU countries about their status, but the details must be finalised first. MUP knows it needs to do something. In any case, with assurances pouring in from other EU countries confirming the legal residence status of British citizens living in their countries, Croatia is sure to follow, just in its own time. Ever the lover of red tape and miraculously turning one sheet of paper into ten, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Croatia is dragging its heels. 

In any case, although the majority of what I wrote in my last article is now void (cheers, Theresa), what remains to be true is that as long as you hold a residence card and are known by the system, you don't need to worry.

You can apply for permanent residence when you've reached five years as you normally would for now, and if you're nowhere near that five year mark yet, just make sure you're properly registered and have a residence card that is valid.

Nobody wants to punish anybody for acting on their EU treaty rights, least of all Croatia after having the rights of its citizens guaranteed and set to be enshrined by London long ago, so make sure to follow us for any updates as we'll be sure to bring them as soon as we're informed of any, should the UK ever actually leave the EU at all.

Make sure to follow our dedicated politics page for more.

The proposal, according to Goran Pauk, will contribute to increasing the quality of life in Croatia's counties and increasing the withdrawal of European Union money. The Croatian Government will soon offer the proposal to Brussels.

As Marija Brnic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 16th of January, 2019, the Croatian Government will submit a proposal for a new division of Croatia's regions to Brussels on the 24th of January this year, in which the current division into two regions will be replaced by a new ''map'' with four divisions.

The existing model was set up back in 2012, with seven coastal counties included in the Adriatic, while thirteen counties and the City of Zagreb are united as continental Croatia. From the very outset, the main weakness of this form of division was showcased by the Croatian capital, the only one with more than 100 percent of development according to the EU average, which unintentionally yet severely limited the potential of withdrawing and using European Union funds in other continental counties.

As in the meantime the number of inhabitants of Zagreb exceeded 800,000, a study was carried out, in which the Institute for development and international relations was engaged. Of the nine analysed divisions, it was determined that it would be best to distinguish Zagreb as a separate region. Adriatic Croatia remains the same, while Northern Croatia would be consist of Krapina-Zagorje, Međimurje and Koprivnica-Križevci counties. Central and Eastern Croatia would be made up of the Slavonian counties plus Bjelovar-Bilogora, Karlovac, Sisak-Moslavina, with the option of Bjelovar-Bilogora also being part of Northern Croatia.

While the Croatian Government will of course be the official body which sends the final proposal, the decisions will be made by the involved counties themselves next week, but in any case, the new divisions, like the other continental ones, will see many counties enjoy far better positions and a greater degree of regional support than the current divisions have. In the counties of Eastern Croatia, and in Sisak-Moslavina and Karlovac, the level of regional aid would increase by 25 percent with this new model when compared to the present situation.

Those in the northwest would be entitled to a 10 percent increase in regional aid while Adriatic Croatia would remain nominally at its current level, but in reality things would also increase there, too. By having Zagreb as one region, the level of compulsory national co-financing on its territory would come up to 60 percent instead of the current 30 percent.

It has been estimated that the Croatian Government's new proposal will certainly contribute to increasing the quality of life in all of Croatia's counties, as well as increase the withdrawal of cash from EU funds. Positive effects will be especially felt by Croatian entrepreneurs in the counties of continental Croatia, because they will be able to receive more support from the available funds.

Keep up with what the Croatian Government's next moves are and much more by following our dedicated politics page.

Click here for the original article by Marija Brnic for Poslovni Dnevnik

As the Croatian demographic crisis continues, many Croatian towns, cities and municipalities have suggested and enforced their own measures to encourage people not only to stay where they are, but to bring new life into the country. What better way to do that than offer cash for each newborn baby? Plitvice Lakes Municipality (Općina Plitvička Jezera) has raised its amount by 2,000 kuna.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 11th of January, 2019, the right to a one-time cash sum is realised when at least one of the parents of a newborn child has a permanent place of residence in the area of ​​the Plitvice Lakes Municipality.

This very welcome news comes from the Plitvice Lakes Municipality itself and as Likaclub.eu writes, the amount of one-off cash sums paid directly by the Plitvice Lakes Municipality to the parents of newborn children from the area covered by that municipality has now been increased.

The amount given to new parents in the Plitvice Lakes Municipality has so far been 3,000 kuna for the first-born child, and then 500 kuna more for each child after that.

By the decision of Mayor Ante Kovač on January the 2nd, 2019, the Plitvice Lakes Municipality will now pay parents a sum of 5,000 kuna for every newborn this year, which is 2,000 kuna more than it has been so far.

The birth of the second child will see new parents receive 5,500 kuna, while for the third newborn child, the parents have the right to assistance in the amount of 6,000 kuna, or for each subsequent child born, 500 kuna more.

Make sure to stay up to date with our dedicated lifestyle and politics pages for more on the Croatian demographic crisis and the measures being put in place by towns, cities and municipalities across the country to help combat the continuing negative effects.

For some, the mere idea of the introduction of the euro in Croatia is enough to induce passionate debate. For others, the introduction of the single European currency is the next step to leaving the country's tumultuous past behind, and joining the ''ever closer union'' that Eurocrats in Brussels speak so highly of. While the United Kingdom managed to secure a way out of the currency's introduction much earlier, Croatia had to agree to take on the euro in order to join the bloc.

Introducing the euro in Croatia is likely to bring problems as well as solve them, but what use is the adoption of the single currency when many of Croatia's national institutions are in total disarray? Until state institutions can be brought into line, the introduction of the euro and the overhaul that involves will only work to contribute to existing issues, rather than help to solve them.

As Ana Blaskovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 9th of January, 2019, just over a year after the announcement of the Croatian Government's intention to introduce the euro, encouraged by positive signals from Europe, Croatia will send a letter of intent to enter the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) by the summer. The aforementioned mechanism is known as the ''waiting room" for a country's introduction of the euro as its currency. Although the letter is only the first formal step in the process of replacing the kuna with the formerly problematic single currency, its content is not merely a pleasant yet rather empty formality.

The letter will involve the Croatian Government agreeing on a series of concrete reform moves, in a relatively short period of about a year. "The ball is now in the government's court to make a list of moves that can be completed within a year, within the gauge that they're achievable, easily measurable, and are written in the letter of intent," an interlocutor close to the central bank told Poslovni Dnevnik.

Judging by the Bulgarian version of the letter that Sofia officially sent to a number of European Union addresses at the end of July, the answer to the question of what exactly Andreja Plenković's government could or should put on paper doesn't need great philosophical effort put into it. There is already a list of specific recommendations from Brussels for the Republic of Croatia.

Reforms is a word that everyone in Croatia gets sick of hearing, and this next political move involves a well-known series of infamous reforms, the implementation of which has been largely shifted to ''next year''. The euro in Croatia however, demands certain reforms be met, and sooner rather than later.

For example, there are administration reforms (including those regarding salaries), reforms to the utterly bizarre Croatian justice system, the establishing of a more just system of social benefits and rights, the strengthening of the fiscal framework, and the introduction of property taxes, a controversial idea which Plenković has moved around quite a lot on.

"The European Commission supports member states' efforts to introduce the euro, not only politically, but in also providing the necessary technical assistance and potential financial resources," said Valdis Dombrovskis, adding that Croatia is very serious in its intentions and is working intensively to meet the conditions for its eventual entry into the eurozone. One of the panelists at that conference was the Croatian National Bank's Boris Vujčić, which is also regarded by all as a firm sign of Croatia's support.

"The most difficult thing to do is to enter the ERM II, because there are no clear criteria that a country needs to meet in order to enter the exchange rate mechanism. Once you're in the ERM, the criteria for introducing the euro is clear, although some of it is constantly changing, so you do need a bit of luck on your side in order to be able to fulfil it,'' said Latvia's governer. One thing is certain, unlike the correspondence Croatia has had with the European Commission until now (primarily concerning becoming a member of the EU), the rules for a country's adoption of the euro are much stricter.

Make sure to stay up to date for more information on the intended introduction of the euro in Croatia and much more by following our dedicated politics page.

Click here for the original article by Ana Blaskovic for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Josip Bohutinski/VL/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 8th of January, 2019, the Croatian Government is set to propose an increase in the amount of PSO contracts Croatia Airlines receives for domestic flights to the European Commission (EC). Croatia's national airline Croatia Airlines (CA) should select a financial advisor to develop a recapitalisation model and find a strategic partner by the end of this month.

The two-time bidding was announced last September, and as has since come to be known, reputable world companies such as Deloitte, AT Kearney, PwC, the Boston Consulting Group and DBV, which are part of a consortium with Croatia's PBZ, have come to be involved.

From Croatia Airlines themselves, they stated that last year, the Croatian Government put the company back on the list of companies of strategic and special interest of the Republic of Croatia, and that in the national reform program, it was stated that the goal in respect to Croatia Airlines is to ensure the further development and strengthening of competitive advantages and positions in the air transport market through quality strategic partnership. That strategic partner, which is obviously yet to be found, should expand Croatia Airlines' transport network and increase market share, as well as successfully recapitalise the air company.

Just how much money is actually needed?

When asked about this, Croatia Airlines responds the bid is still in process and therefore the company isn't in a position to comment on its details at the moment. The selected advisor should assess the amount of money really needed for the recapitalisation of the airline. Croatia Airlines' provisional director, Jasmin Bajić, has already estimated that it stands at about 250 million kuna.

In the past year, the Polish national airline LOT and the 4K German investment fund, which has already taken over Slovenia's Adria Airways, have both been interested in entering Croatia Airlines. As is already known, some Chinese air carriers have recently shown a somewhat general interest, but air carriers outside the European Union can only have up to a 49 percent share in an airline from within the European Union at most. As potential buyers, the Chinese have also mentioned the previous sales attempts by Croatia Airlines, all of which have failed.

Nobody made any serious offers or even showed a great deal of potential interest back in the 2013 recapitalisation bid, although Indonesia's Garuda and China's Hainan Airlines were mentioned as potential buyers. Of course, nothing came of it.

The then government started looking for a strategic partner for Croatia Airlines once again back in 2015, they hired IFC, a World Bank fund that verified the interest of European and world air carriers for the Croatian national airline. At that time, Korean Air and Taiwanese Eva Air were mentioned as the most prominent companies. IFC was supposed to propose a proper privatisation model for Croatia Airlines, after which a public tender was to be launched. But yet again, nothing came of it, because parliamentary elections were held at the end of the year, and the powers that be were subsequently changed.

While the new advisor elaborates the model of privatisation of Croatia Airlines again, the government will, along with the European Commission, try to find a way and hopefully agree on how the state could further assist the still struggling Croatia Airlines.

The Croatian proposal will be to increase the amount of public service obligation (PSO) contracts that Croatia Airlines gets for domestic flights, currently amounting to 75 million kuna. In addition, this year the Croatian National Tourist Board will receive 7.5 million kuna for joint advertising.

Make sure to stay up to date with the Croatia Airlines saga and much more by following our dedicated business, politics and lifestyle pages.

Click here for the original article by Josip Bohutinski/VL on Poslovni Dnevnik

The Croatian demographic crisis is something that is making all the headlines for all the wrong reasons of late, but just how ''new'' is this negative and concerning trend? It would appear that the tap has been trickling for a great number of years. The popular historic Dalmatian city of Šibenik is an unlikely but excellent example of this.

As SibenikIN writes on the 8th of January, 2019, in the face of the Croatian demographic crisis, in his latest blog post, Ivo Jakovljević has written about the gradual reduction of the Šibenik population since the beginning of the Homeland War, the largest reduction caused by the plague back in 1649. All this, as Jakovljević writes in his blog post, has influenced Šibenik's age and education composition with long-term consequences, even in terms of the local surname composition.

The largest demographic changes in 300 years occurred in the area of ​​Šibenik-Knin County during the Homeland War between the years 1991-1995 this was highlighted by the population census taken in 1991, and then again in 2001. Not only did the total number of inhabitants decrease significantly (in part due to deaths on both the Croatian and the Serbian side, and mainly in the face of forced migration), but there were also changes in many other areas, too.

As opposed to the economy being the main driving force for the negative trends the country is experiencing today, war migrations played a huge role in the Croatian demographic crisis back then. During the Homeland War, from the summer of 1991 onwards, a lot of movement could be witnessed. These displaced people were predominantly Croats, and also some Serbs who didn't agree with Greater Serbian politics. Individuals and families were expelled from their places of residence in many cases during the war, and many of these people moved to Šibenik and the unoccupied areas of Šibenik-Knin County, while a smaller number went abroad.

As of mid-1992, amid the continual spread of the war in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, many refugees, made up mainly of Croats and Bosnians, also arrived in the wider Šibenik area. At the beginning of August 1995, a significant number of Serbs left not only Šibenik-Knin County but Croatia as a whole, heading generally in the direction of the Banja Luka area and towards Belgrade, and from those areas they were displaced in all directions, with some even heading towards the north of Kosovo.

Hundreds of them (mostly younger, more mobile and better educated people) then continued moving onwards to Central Europe, with some of them even heading much further afield, outside of Europe to Canada and Australia. During the time of the pre-war crisis in Kosovo, after 1995, many people from Janjevo arrived in the village of Kistanje, and later settled and declared themselves as Catholics.

At the end of this pattern of deep demographic shock, the total number of inhabitants in Šibenik-Knin County during the period between 1991 to 2001 decreased from 152,125 to just 109,799. According to the latest estimates by the Central Bureau of Statistics (due to the chronic low birth rate and the somewhat new trend of economic emigration - predominantly to Zagreb, Germany, and Ireland) in 2019, there may be less than 100,000 in total.

Thus, from 1991 to 2001 the total number of inhabitants in the aforementioned county decreased by 42,326 persons - almost one third! Then, from 2001 to 2019, by about ten thousand. Among the emigrants from 1991 to 2001, almost three quarters (or 74 percent of them) were Serbs.

In Šibenik-Knin County, Serbs once made up as much as 40.7 percent of the population. Just ten years later, Serbs were no longer a majority in any one of the counties. This trend continued, and in 2011, the number of Serbs in the county decreased from 60,800 in 1991 to 11,518 in 2011, and in Šibenik, there were 1,434 Serbs recorded in 2011. On the other side of that same medal, the number of Croats in the total composition the population in the county increased from 58.42 percent in 1991, to 83.80 percent in 2001, and then to 85 percent in 2011.

The same trend changed the confessional composition of Šibenik-Knin County. The number of Catholics increased from 54.9 percent in 1991 to 82.8 percent in 2001, while the share of those of the Orthodox faith decreased from 38.02 to 7.31 percent.

The long-term consequences of war victims, forced and voluntary emigrations, and war and transitional economic damage in the broader Šibenik hinterland, right up to Drniš and Knin, have resulted in some significant changes in the area's surname structure, which - judging from both from the 2001 census and from the much later 2011 census, has seen the apparent disappearance of a subset of traditional Croatian and Serbian surnames from the Šibenik hinterland.

Want to find out more about the Croatian demographic crisis and much more? Give our dedicated lifestyle and politics pages a follow.

Graffiti of a hammer and sickle, a proletarian solidarity symbol which primarily symbolised the unity of the peasants and the workers during the 1917 revolution and eventually became closely associated with Communism, has appeared on the newly placed Zagreb statue of independent Croatia's first president, Dr. Franjo Tuđman.

As Vecernji list (view photos here) writes on the 6th of January, 2019, the controversial hammer and sickle graffiti was sprayed by as yet unknown vandals on the new Zagreb statue to the Independent Republic of Croatia's very first president some time during Saturday night.

To briefly recall, Zagreb's new monument dedicated to Dr. Franjo Tuđman was officially unveiled on the 19th anniversary of the death of the first Croatian president. Croatian politicians, Homeland War defenders from all corners of the country, and people from across Croatia came to the capital and laid wreaths in memory of Dr. Franjo Tuđman.

Dr. Franjo Tuđman remains a controversial character and for many is a dividing character depending on which side of the political spectrum one stands on. While many consider him to be the heroic first present of the then newly independent Republic of Croatia, freed from the former shackles of an increasingly oppressive Yugoslavia, others see him in a rather different light, with many speculating on his placement as being one coordinated at the hands of those with underhand motives working against the newly independent state.

In any case, statues of the first Croatian president can be found all over Croatia, with the newest in the Croatian capital attracting a particular amount of attention, in both a positive and a negative sense.

The monument stands at a height of almost seven metres, making it the largest in the whole of the Republic of Croatia currently.

Make sure to stay up to date with our dedicated politics page for much more on the Croatian political scene.

As Morski writes on the 5th of January, 2019, the complete overhaul of Tito's "Galeb" ship is undoubtedly the largest projects thought up by the mayor of Rijeka, Vojko Obersnel, in the past few years. Will his critics stop him? Unlikely, but the cost might.

For years, Rijeka's longtime mayor Vojko Obersnel has been subject to a lot of understandable criticism for his buying and desire to maintain Tito's "Galeb", which has cost more than a million kuna to date, but those protesting Obersnel's to completely repair Galeb would typically shut up when told that the overhaul of Tito's former vessel would be largely financed by European Union funds.

After the official acknowledgment that this is really true came, there were no longer any real obstacles to a tender for the job. Obersnel's critics have mostly remained quiet, even if temporarily, and even some of the furniture from the ship has been renovated.

At the beginning of 2019, more precisely on the 3rd of January, a public tender was concluded for Galeb's renovation, and although they hoped from the City of Rijeka that there might be at least a few bids, only one bid arrived wanting the job of bringing Tito's ship back to life.

The City of Rijeka's administration were likely finding it difficult to come across at least one shipyard ready to take up this truly demanding job, the cost of which is estimated at approximately 27.6 million kuna. As the Fiuman.hr portal exclusively reports from a well-informed source, the only offer came from the Viktor Lenac shipyard, but they have set the cost of the forecast twice as high as initially expected. If their offer is accepted, it will cost about 60 million kuna to breathe new life back into Tito's Galeb.

The City of Rijeka now has two options in this situation. One of them is to secure the remaining 32 million kuna from their own sources, and the only realistic possibility for it is to take out a new loan, which must be approved by the City Council of the City of Rijeka, where Obersnel has, at least officially, no actual majority.

It's no secret that the City of Rijeka has been living on credit for years now, and at this moment, owing primarily to poor management of the city's budget, this amounts to as much as 277 million kuna. To briefly recall, Maribor in Slovenia was also once the proud owner of the title of European Capital of Culture, and for this reason the city almost suffered bankruptcy, and many well-informed individuals are afraid that a similar path is currently being taken by Rijeka, especially if a loan is taken out solely for the purpose of bringing Tito's vessel into the 21st century.

Rijeka's second option is to cancel the tender entirely, and given the huge difference between the forecasts and actual costs of the ship's overhaul, the announcement of a new tender is not reasonable and it is questionable whether or not, should that be the case, Galeb's overhaul would be completed by the end of 2020 as the current deadline is quite stretched.

Make sure to stay up to date by following our dedicated lifestyle page for much more.

Click here for the original article by Zoran Zdelar for Fiuman.hr

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 4th of January, 2018, for the whole area of ​​the town of Trilj, only eight building permits were issued for the construction of family homes in 2018.

Trilj, a town and municipality located in inland Dalmatia boasts 26 settlements which extend to 267 square kilometres, and in which 9,109, just inhabitants lived according to the 2011 census. This number is certainly significantly lower due to Croatia's ongoing demographic crisis and migration from all over Croatia which continues on today.

This worrying information set alarm bells ringing for Trilj's mayor, Ivan Šipic. While the Čaporice work zone and the 3LJ project both continue to try to secure as many new jobs as possible for Trilj's residents, and a number of other moves and investments are attempting to reverse the increasingly unfavourable demographic trends facing not only Trilj but the entire country, the notion of there never having been a smaller number of permits issued for the construction of family homes clearly shook the mayor.

Owing to this, an idea has been arrived to in order to encourage more people to request permits build houses. Šipić proposed, and the town council unanimously accepted, that in Trilj's budget for 2019, the amount of 300,000 kuna has been allocated to stimulate the construction of family houses, Slobodna Dalmacija writes.

"Many Trilj locals have plots, but for building permits they have to allocate at least 15,000 kuna. For many of our fellow citizens, that's a very large amount and even bigger brake when it comes to the decision on getting involved in construction, and as mayor, I've decided that all Trilj locals who want to build family houses will get their building permits free of charge,'' stated Mayor Šipić. Priority will be given to young married couples who choose to live with their families.

Make sure to stay up to date with our dedicated lifestyle and politics pages for more on Croatia's demographic crisis and the measures being proposed and adopted in order to combat it. If it's just inland Dalmatia you're interested in, follow our dedicated inland Dalmatia page.

As tportal writes on the 3rd of January, 2019, The Banker, a magazine which belongs to the Financial Times group and is issued monthly, gave two prestigious awards of recognition to the Governor of the Croatian National Bank, Boris Vujčić, for the year 2018 - one as the best European governor, and the one for the best central banker on a global scale.

The Banker has been following various financial developments across the entire world since 1926. It has been declaring the best regional governor and governor of the year on an international level each year in its January issue, and the winners are based on the magazine's editorial rating and research conducted among bankers and economic analysts.

Recognition from The Banker is guided by the criterion that the winners are those responsible for "stimulating growth and stabilising the economies in which they operate". The recognition is awarded globally, as well as regionally - for Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa. The Banker also gave recognition to the former Governor of the CNB (HNB), Željko Rohatinski, back in 2008.

In the article published by The Banker on the occasion of the award to Croatia's Boris Vujčić, his versatility was emphasised: "Seven years before Croatia's entry into the European Union in 2013, he was the deputy chief negotiator during the successful candidacy of that country for joining the European Union. He was Deputy Governor of the Croatian National Bank and has been Governor since 2012. He has recently co-ordinated central bank management and the development of the Croatian strategy for joining the Eurozone with the chairmanship of the Vienna Initiative steering committee.''

The explanation further states that the Vienna Initiative, which is less known outside of the region, was launched in 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis with a view to securing the financial stability of emerging economies with markets in Central and Eastern Europe. There was a fear that the major Western and Northern European banks, which dominated the financial systems of these countries, would withdraw from lending and cause a catastrophic credit crunch. Since then, the Vienna Initiative has spread to seventeen countries in the region, as well as to international financial institutions, the European Commission, and to several major European lenders.

The Banker cites the role of Boris Vujčić and the Croatian National Bank in ​​keeping hold of Croatia's financial and banking stability during the recent Agrokor crisis. The article also highlights the public advocacy of the governor of the Croatian National Bank for structural reforms - particularly when it comes to education, in order to create market competencies that will dominate innovation and technological progress, as well as a smart immigration policy as one of the measures to address the problem of labour shortage which is currently enfeebling the Croatian economy.

Upon receiving the prestigious recognition, Boris Vujčić said: "I'm exceptionally honoured; this is a great tribute to the Croatian National Bank, and to me personally. This award is further motivation to me to continue working on our goals - price and exchange stability, so that every citizen of the Republic of Croatia knows, with certainty, that what they earn won't lose value. We're also thinking about Croatian companies and the security of their financial operations and financing possibilities. We will continue to monitor banks in order to maintain financial stability, as well as to improve consumer rights and information.

Success in achieving our goals contributes to creating a better environment for economic growth and the development of the entire country. And finally, we believe - and in this way we'll communicate with all citizens and companies, inform and answer every question and dilemma - that our entry into the Eurozone can further stimulate economic growth and development, make our country stronger within European frameworks, and thus serve for the prosperity of every citizen of Croatia.''

Make sure to stay up to date with our dedicated business and politics pages for much more.