ZAGREB, January 3, 2019 – Croatia’s government on Thursday adopted a national programme of assistance to the wine sector from 2019 to 2023 whereby Croatian wineries can count on 11.09 million euro in state aid each year, or 55.4 million euro on aggregate in that five-year period.
Outlining the document, Agriculture Minister Tomislav Tolušić said that he expected the first public calls under this wine envelope to be advertised by the end of this month.
Of the 11.09 million euro for each year, 10.8 million is to be provided from European Union funds, and the state budget is to set aside 260,100 euro annually.
The Andrej Plenković cabinet today adopted guidelines of the state aid policy in the 2019-2021 period. In this context, Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said that the most desirable state aid is the horizontal state aid in compliance with the EU practice, primarily for research and development, innovations, environmental protection, training, employment and investment. The guidelines refer to state aid provided to the industry and services, he added.
The trend of increasing state aid continued in 2017, with a total of 12.4 billion kuna granted, which is 8.5% more than in 2016 and 25.5% more than in 2015, shows a report endorsed by the government in early December.
State aid in 2017 was up by 974.9 million kuna from 2016, when it amounted to 11.4 billion kuna, and by 2.5 billion kuna from 2015, when state aid amounted to 9.9 billion kuna.
The state aid-to-GDP ratio also increased to 3.39%, whereas in 2016 that ratio was 3.25% and in 2015 it was 2.91%.
The share of aid in state expenditure too continued to grow. In 2017 it amounted to 9.92%, in 2016 it was 9.50% and in 2015 it amounted to 8.33%, the report notes.
The report shows that state aid per capita increased too and in 2017 amounted to 2,950.90 kuna, which is 232 kuna or 8.5% more than in 2016 and 599.30 kuna or 25.5% more than in 2015.
Broken down by sectors, the largest amount of the state aid went to the industry and services sector, 7.2 billion kuna, making up 58% of state aid.
The sector of agriculture and fisheries got 5.2 billion kuna, or 42% of total state aid in 2017.
More news on the Croatian wines can be found in our Lifestyle section.
