ZAGREB, 7 April 2022 - Sanctions imposed by Western countries on Russia will not stop the war in Ukraine, Croatian President Zoran Milanović said during a visit to Switzerland, adding that the war could be stopped only with the help of diplomacy.

"These sanctions will not be enough to stop the war," Milanović said at a news conference after meeting his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis.

The Croatian president said that having followed "the stock exchange in Moscow and the ruble that has returned to the level of a month ago in relation to the dollar", he had to conclude that "as in every such case, it unfortunately only encourages thugs."

"I would be happiest if Russia withdrew in an hour, if it simply left, but that won't happen," Milanović said, adding that the only way to stop the war is diplomacy, with mediation by the countries "that enjoy a certain level of trust."

There are just a few such countries in the world, he said at the end of the news conference, without specifying them.

"Croatia cannot do much in Ukraine," but it can do much in the Western Balkans, he said, adding that he and his Swiss counterpart discussed the topic at Cassis's suggestion.

"That concerns us directly and we have good intentions," Milanović added.

The Western Balkans is very important for Europe's stability and its security architecture, the Swiss president, a liberal and physician by profession, said.

Cassis said he was particularly moved to talk about that with the Croatian president and that it took him back to the time when he worked as a physician in Switzerland, working also with completely traumatised victims of war from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After their meeting, the two presidents participated in a panel on security challenges in Europe and Switzerland's neutrality, after which they were expected to visit CERN, the European organisation for nuclear research.

For more, check out our politics section.

January the 24th, 2022 - The Croatian average salary can purchase four times less fuel than the average Swiss salary can, which is unlikely to come as much of a shock to anyone. Now that the Swiss labour market is fully open to Croatian nationals, facts such as this one are likely to only add to further demographic issues.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, here in Croatia, 643 litres of Eurosuper 95 petrol can be purchased at its current price for the average Croatian average salary.

At the same time, the Swiss can buy 2742 litres of fuel for their average salary, the Danes can buy 2150, the Norwegians can buy 1828, and the Germans can buy 1706 litres. The neighbouring Italians, with a slightly lower average salary of 1,752 euros and currently the eighth most expensive fuel in all of Europe (1.77 euros per litre) can purchase one thousand litres.

When you look at the price of fuel only, Croats are currently paying for the 18th most expensive petrol from as many as 44 European countries, meaning that the country's fuel prices are among the most expensive.

A litre of petrol is the most expensive in the Netherlands, amounting to 2.11 euros, followed by Norway with a price tag of 1.92 euros, the Finns with 1.89 euros, then the Icelanders and Danes, and surprisingly the Greeks with 1.78 euros per litre of fuel.

Given that the average salary in Greece stands at roughly 1,116 euros, they can purchase less fuel than the average Croatian salary can, being able to afford just 627 litres. The Portuguese are in a similar situation, where a litre of Super 95 costs 1.71 euros, or almost 13 kuna. With their average salary of 1,110 euros, they can afford just a few more litres of fuel than the Croats - 649 litres.

The bad news for Croatia is that in 17 countries across Europe with (currently) higher fuel prices than those listed in Croatia, with the exception of Greece, significantly more litres of fuel can be bought for an average salary than for the Croatian average salary. That said, it is also old news that we're following Western European countries in terms of prices, but not in terms of overall living standards.

According to the latest data, fuel in neighbouring Serbia is only slightly cheaper than it is here in Croatia, 10.7 kuna when recalculated, and in Serbia the average salary is only 550 euros, which means that only 385 litres of Super 95 can be purchased for a typical Serbian wage. The ratio is more or less the same down south in Montenegro, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina, thanks to the slightly lower price of a litre of gasoline (1.20 euros), the situation is a little more bearable.

The Hungarians, Bulgarians and Romanians, as well as the Slovaks, can currently buy slightly less petrol for their average salaries than the Croats can.

In a total of six European countries, petrol is still below the 1 euro price limit. Apart from Russia, these are Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine, Novi list writes.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

July 1, 2021 - Research of Croatian Scientists on homelessness in Croatia was presented in June at the 15th edition of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) conference.

Cooperation and comparative scientific studies between the Swiss and Croatians were already evident this year at the European Conference For Social Work Research (ECSWR).

As Total Croatia News previously reported, Dr. Lynette Šikić Mićanović participated in ECSWR representing Croatian scientific authors Suzana Sakić and Paula Greiner, with whom as a team, participated in a joint research project called "Exploring Homelessness and Pathways to Social Inclusion: A Comparative Study of Contexts and Challenges in Swiss and Croatian Cities (No. IZHRZO_180631/1), co-lead by the Swiss science team.

Back in June, as Ivo Pilar Social Research Institute informed, both Mićanović and Greiner participated in the 15th edition of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) conference titled “Breaking the rules? Power, Participation, and Transgression". The conference was held online at the University of Helsinki, Finland, from June 19- 26. Both Šikić Mićanović and Greiner attended a panel called 'Res08a: Breaking Spatial Rules - Micro-practices of resistance and refusal against dominant forms of territoriality I', to present their work „Homelessness and social exclusion: the negotiation of public spaces“.

„Their paper explores how homeless people who live in or use public urban spaces (in the absence of their own private spaces) break its rules and convert it into their (private) spheres for different activities related to work, leisure, and/or personal needs such as sleep/rest and hygiene“, explained the Ivo Pilar Social Research Institute.

Just like for the ECSWR, the Institute added that their work presented on SIEF is part of a project “Exploring Homelessness and Pathways to Social Inclusion: A Comparative Study of Contexts and Challenges in Swiss and Croatian Cities” (No. IZHRZO_180631/1). Once again, it was financed within the Croatian-Swiss Research Program of the Croatian Science Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation with funds obtained from the Swiss-Croatian Cooperation Program.

As SIEF explains on its official website, SIEF is a „pluridisciplinary organization centered in the twin fields of ethnology and folklore (E&F) in their various denominations, within the larger family of anthropological and cultural-historical disciplines.“

„SIEF is eclectic and open-minded, promiscuous in its disciplinary relations while keeping faith with its founding values and vision. Global in its origins, today SIEF operates within an institutional context that is concentrated in but not limited to Europe," explains their website.

They add how their principal mission is to gather scholars to provide platforms for critical debate, networking, and exchange, as well as for building infrastructures for intellectual cooperation, publishing and promoting scientific work related to ethnology, folklore, and neighboring disciplines.

Learn more about Croatia: location, facts, economy, and more on our TC page.

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

May 28, 2021 - A recently published study on ionic liquids with solid state nanopores at the Ruđer Bošković Institute (IRB) can help the energy storage sector.

The top scientific and research institution in Croatia, the Ruđer Bošković Institute (IRB), continues to be the home of interesting scientific progress.

Researchers from the IRB's computer bioscience team, Nataša Vučemilović-Alagić, and dr. Mario Špadina under the mentorship of dr. Ana Sunčana Smith cleared the phenomenon of transport inside liquids on the principle of nanopores in the solid-state. A nanopore is a small cavity in solid matter, invisible to the naked eye. This IRB research was done in collaboration with dr. Sanjin Marion and dr. Aleksandra Rađenović from École Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and the research results are published in the prestigious scientific journal Small which specializes in nanotechnology.

Professor Ana Sunčana Smith's IRB team deals with molecular descriptions of chemical and physical interactions of ionic liquids (liquids that are not neutral but have either positive or negative electric charge) on various solid surfaces. The goal was to determine the impact of specific ions and specific surfaces. The appliance of this knowledge is in line with guidelines of the EU Green Deal, and the UN sustainable development goals", explained IRB in the official press release.

The press release added this knowledge is useful in storing energy, as ionic liquids in nanopores represent an alternative to batteries.

„In this research, starting from the principle of water solutions, we combine ionic fluids and nanopores of different geometric features and materials to secure new nanofluid functionalities. This solves some of the relevant issues in the understanding of basic principles of transports in space-limited ionic liquids and ensuring better control of the speed of translocating within an analyte“, explained Dr. Ana Sunčana Smith.

It's worth noting that dr. Sunčana Smith is one of the Croatian scientists that received support from the Croatian European Research Council (ERC) for a very prestigious project in researching biological membranes worth 1,5 million euros.

Energy efficiency is something IRB shows to be really dedicated to, as evident by the progress IRB researchers made in exploring materials for converting CO2 to methanol alcohol, and IRB's Rovinj Sea Research Centre that celebrated 130 years of existence this year priorities maritime ecology and its protection in its research.

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.

May 19, 2021 - Held in Bucharest, Romania, the European Conference For Social Work Research saw Croatian and Swiss scientists jointly participate in scientific issues of social work in Croatia and Switzerland.

Earlier in May, the University of Bucharest, located after the biggest city and capital of Romania, held an online edition of the European Conference For Social Work Research (ECSWR).
Swiss and Croatian teams jointly participated in the symposium „Opportunities and Obstacles in the Evaluation of Homelessness from a Lifeworld-oriented International Social Work Perspective“, which saw prof. Matthias Drilling and dr. Zsolt Temesvary represent their University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), and dr. Lynette Šikić Mićanović represent the Croatian Ivo Pilar Social Research Institute. The conference was organized by The European Social Work Research Association (ESWRA)

As stated by ESWRA's official website, the association was founded in 2014 with a goal to create social work research development, collaboration, and exchange across Europe. As the ECSWR conference saw overwhelming levels of engagement, the ESWRA association today counts 600 members from across more than 33 countries.

„ESWRA’s vision is to take forward the development, practice, and utilization of social work research to enhance knowledge about individual and social problems, and to promote just and equitable societies“, says ESWRA.

While Dr. Lynette Šikić Mićanović presented Croatia at the conference, she is also a member of the team that includes Suzana Sakić and Paula Greiner. Along with the aforementioned Swiss team, the Ivo Pilar Social Research Institute informed that the Croatian team participated in a joint research project called "Exploring Homelessness and Pathways to Social Inclusion: A Comparative Study of Contexts and Challenges in Swiss and Croatian Cities (No. IZHRZO_180631/1).

„This work is financed within the Croatian-Swiss Research Program of the Croatian Science Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation with funds obtained from the Swiss-Croatian Cooperation Program”, says the Ivo Pilar Social Research Institute on its website.

Looking at the „Homelessness and Social Exclusion in Croatia“ science paper whose author is Lynette Šikić-Mićanović from 2010, its abstract suggests that „homelessness is a relatively new phenomenon in most Croatian cities and has been largely ignored by policymakers and social scientists“. So, Šikić-Mičanović's paper aimed to research and contribute new data on a previously unresearched social group to answer the urgent need for a fuller understanding of the perceptions and experiences of homeless people in Croatia.

„Based on the research findings of this study, a number of recommendations can be made for the provision of comprehensive information, services, and assistance to lessen social exclusion among homeless persons as well as to facilitate their routes out of homelessness“, says the paper. Based on scientific research, there are overall five recommendations, as follows:
1.) Special attention – apart from accommodation – needs to be paid to the quality (or lack) of services that homeless people urgently require, such as medical, counseling, legal, supportive holistic assistance from professional qualified and sensitised staff, and so on.
2.) Continual and systematic evaluation is required at shelters and among the wider homeless population by teams of qualified persons, researchers, and/or non-governmental organisations for the assessment and articulation of their needs, abilities, aspirations, and problems.
3.) Programmes need to be developed at the local level to meet different contextual needs. These could include more accessible (less public) soup kitchens, perhaps with special menus (e.g., for diabetics); the introduction of public bathhouses, day centres, doctor’s/dentist’s surgery, or subsidised accommodation for homeless persons, depending on the context.
4.) Volunteers from all age groups should be found and trained with a view to increasing public awareness of homelessness and social exclusion and dispelling the myths and stereotypes about homeless people.
5.) Former shelter users should be monitored and assisted with accommodation and other support services (e.g., utility bills, furniture, therapy, financial aid, help with education) to prevent them from becoming homeless again.

These recommendations are directly quoted from the scientific paper for the sake of accuracy, and hopefully, for a better tomorrow, the policies of the state will follow the scientific findings and discoveries in social sciences.

Learn more about Croatia: location, facts, economy, and more on our TC page.

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

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes on the 25th of October, 2020, the Swiss company Frilite SA is planning to explore 50 million kuna this year in its new Croatian factory in Visnjan, Istria. Frilite SA is otherwise a company engaged in the production and processing of minerals, microspheres - Perlite, based on volcanic rocks, and which is used mostly in the construction industry for environmentally friendly construction and energy efficiency in buildings.

As confirmed in Gwatt, near Bern, where the company is headquartered, work on the new plant is expected to begin by the end of this year, and next year the first of a total of four expected production lines should be in operation. fully coming to life by the year 2025.

Bernhard Neukam, Frilite SA's product manager, explained that the company is going with a state-of-the-art microsphere production plant based on natural perlite resources, and the technology currently being installed uses only electricity, meaning no combustion gases, chemicals or process water are used.

"The project in Croatia will be environmentally neutral and meet all the rules and standards of today's legislation in the EU and in Croatia,'' Neukam pointed out. As early as next year, the plant should employ fifteen new workers, and ultimately a total of 30 people should be working in three shifts.

Frilite SA pointed out that they plan to hire mostly local people who will be further educated precisely for this technology.

Although Poslovni exclusively found out the details of this project, in Istria, the very announcement of this project, ie the decision of the Municipal Council of Visnjan to give consent for this project in the business zone Visnjan-Milanezi, took place, after the decision to sell 5000 m2 land to the Swiss took place.

Microspheres are the hidden champions of today’s industrial world. People hardly know about their existence, but almost everyone uses them every day because they make the products lighter, fireproof and better insulated (e.g. building insulation products) and therefore save energy throughout their life cycle.

They are also suitable as a replacement for "plastic microspheres" in products for personal care and cleaning and weather protection of the environment and the sea from further contamination with plastic.

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