New-look licence plates for Croatian motorists.
In the new year, Croatian drivers should start getting new license plates for motor vehicles which will include the European logo. The original deadline for the new licence plates was July 1, but the deadline was pushed back due to complications after a prolonged competition, reports Vecernji List on October 25, 2015. The three winning designs did not include the Croatian coat of arms, and some political parties, primarily HDZ, criticized such designs, so the ruling coalition caved in. It insisted that designers must change their designs and include the coat of arms on the new licence plates. Since the Interior Ministry failed to agree with the authors of the best and second best proposals, the final selected design is the one which originally came third, created by an architect from Rijeka Gordan Resan.
“It is not true that the other two designers have abandoned the project because they did not want to change their designs. They have tried to create the necessary tools for the licence plate production, but they failed. It is a technically very demanding job, but we have been able to do it. All the tools for producing licence plates with all the details have been recently completed and turned over to police. Now it is up to them to start producing new licence plates”, said Resan.
According to the Interior Ministry, new licence plates will include the European logo and the country code HR on the left side of the plate, the letter designation of the registration area, a series of numbers and letters, and the Croatian coat of arms on the right side of the plate. “The font we used during the competition, which was taken from German plates, has been changed and will be very similar to the font on current Croatian licence plates”, Resan explained.
Since the new plates will include the European logo, Croatian drivers will no longer be required to have a separate elliptical HR label at the rear of the vehicle while driving abroad. The new licence plates should not be significantly more expensive than the current ones. The current price is 76 kuna, and the drivers, according to the Interior Ministry, will have no obligation to replace the current licence plates. According to an earlier proposal by the Interior Ministry, new registration areas will be introduced, with their number increasing from current 34 registration areas to 128.
