As Index writes, every fourth inspection by the State Inspectorate has alarmingly showed unjustified price increases after December the 31st last year, the last day before the Eurozone accession. In some sad cases, the prices of services rose by up to 30 percent, and bakery products rose in price by an average of 15 percent in retail trade. The state doesn’t intend to stop hunting down enterprises who have hiked their prices up, while on the other hand, traders feel victimised and intend to take legal steps to contest those fines, according to HRT.
Cases of high fines being issued throughout the trade sector due to unjustified price rounding are being published daily. The state has so far undertaken almost 1,500 inspections, and in about 300 cases price increases have been found, while another 200 are still being analysed – which means that this percentage could very easily (and drastically) increase.
“I believe that we’ll meet the goals we’ve set for ourselves. It’s difficult for me to comment on my colleagues from the State Inspectorate, but the percentage of 25 percent is not small. I believe that due to the supervision, a good number of companies decided on their own initiative to return to their previous prices [from December 2022]. I think the State Inspectorate is doing a good job,” said Jurica Lovrincevic, an advisor to the Minister of Economy.
The Croatian Chamber of Trades and Crafts (HOK): We’ll help traders in preparing appeals
The list of price increases since the New Year is led by various services, which on average have increased in price by almost 30 percent. But some hairdressers, restaurateurs and other enterprises believe that they’re being targeted and unfairly punished.
“We started this story in order to engage law firms, and I hereby call on all fellow craft owners who have received misdemeanor orders to contact their associations, to contact our advisory service at the Croatian Chamber of Crafts, and we’ll certainly help them in preparing appeals for the misdemeanor courts,” said Dalibor Kratohvil from the Croatian Chamber of Crafts.
“We believe that all these fines and penalties are unfounded, we believe that this shouldn’t have happened because it’s always the small companies who suffer in these stories, and those are the last in the chain, micro-enterprises,” he added.
Lawyer Doroteja Jurcic also pointed out that there are a number of problems with these misdemeanor orders.
“Every misdemeanor order from any part of Croatia is absolutely the same, it has an identical explanation, which speaks in favour of the fact that these are previously written explanations that aren’t actually related to whatever the specific case at hand is at all. I think that there’s already a problem. What the State Inspectorate refers to in its reasons are the Consumer Protection Act and the application of aggressive business practices by traders or enterprises,” explained Doroteja Jurcic from the Voice of Entrepreneurs (UGP) Association.
“The prescribed fines for craft owners are from 5 to 15 thousand kuna, for legal entities they’re slightly higher, for natural persons as owners they are the same – from 5 to 15 thousand kuna. So, a legal entity that has a d.o.o. or j.d.o.o. finds themselves in a situation of receiving two penalties, one as a legal entity, and another as a natural person, the owner,” she added.
The Croatian Employers’ Association (HUP): There have been no unjustified price increases
Mirko Budimir, vice president of HUP and representative of small retailers, emphasised that there have been no unjustified price increases and that retailers haven’t increased their margins. An increase occurs if the retailer has increased their own margins, he pointed out.
“I’d say that there have been no unjustified increase in prices. What we did at the beginning was the conversion from the kuna to the euro. The state inspectorate showed that we did not have any violations, if we have, then these are minimal offenses simply because someone got the conversion wrong. As for raising prices from the position of a small trader, I can say that there was no price raising either, but we have to keep in mind that trade is a process that we can’t just say ceases on December the 31st, 2022, and then nothing else ever happens,” said Budimir.
“If a trader was purchasing goods sometime on December the 20th, 2022, and their prices went up until December the 31st, that means that they already had a new input. When they receive a new input, then they have to do a new calculation. Traders form their prices so that they have an input price from the manufacturer, that is, the supplier, increased by their own margin and then by VAT. In this entire process which is carried out, it can be seen that the trader didn’t increase their margin even though they had an increase in costs,” he concluded.
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