As Novac/Gordana Grgas writes, at least 50 percent of European Union money is set to be available to Croatia in the next period, which is a total of about 24 billion euros. The Croatian Employers Association believes that around half of that massive amount should be made available to the private sector through calls for grants.
Employers are also urging the Croatian Government to properly amend the draft National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPOO), the first version of which it has already sent to the European Commission (EC), and to further strengthen the role of the private sector in it.
Although the draft itself hasn’t yet been published, and has only recently been roughly presented to the Croatian Employers Association, it appears that most of the 6 billion euros in grants from the NPOO, to be funded by the European Recovery and Resilience Mechanism as a result of the ongoing coronavirus crisis, could end up in reform-related public sector projects. As announced by the Croatian Employers Association at a recently held press conference, they plan to urgently send their remarks and suggestions to the European Commission itself. The final draft, they say, should be ready and sent to Brussels in April.
So far, a quarter of the money available to Croatia from EU funds has gone to the private sector, warned the Croatian Employers Association’s Damir Zoric. The rest ended up going to public investments and public infrastructure, and Croatia needs larger investments in production for the development of the economy. Boris Drilo, President of the aforementioned associations’s ICT Association explained that previous investments in the private sector have been shown to have a significant impact on economic growth.
“It’s a minute until midnight for all of us, after which we can turn into either a princess or a pumpkin,” he said in a rather picturesque manner. He also stressed that investments in private sector projects lead to sustainable employment for high-value jobs.
In February, the Croatian Employers Association conducted a survey among 1,700 enterprise owners, which showed that more than two thirds of them have prepared projects or investment plans for the next financial period in the amount of more than 21 billion kuna. As many as 94 percent of them would exclusively utilise EU grants, so there is extremely little interest in these so-called financial instruments, such as loans, and 30 percent say they will not be able to invest if these grants aren’t enough.
On top of that, 28 percent of enterprise owners say they will not survive the ongoing pandemic crisis without better co-financing. Most of them stated that they would invest in capacity expansion and modernisation if they could be more certain, and the projects they have in those areas are the ones which are the most ready to be realised.
Drilo explained that, in general, the investment potential of available European Union money is significantly higher if it is directed to private investments, and it is also less burdensome for the state budget. Namely, a private company from the EU receives 40 to 70 percent of the investment amount as support, and the rest is financed by itself. The public sector, on the other hand, receives 85 percent of the money from the EU for the project, and the rest is added from public sources, which is less favourable.
Answering a question related to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Croatian Employers Association said that the state should be prevented from competing with the private sector with its projects.
Ana Fresl, president of the Croatian Employers Association’s Association of Professionals for EU Funds confirmed that the draft plan presented to them, in which only state bodies participated, exceeded the available six billion euros, and there has not been any feedback on which parts of the plan will remain and which will be discarded. In their belief, what was presented to them under the name “economy”, the first version of the plan envisages a series of projects that have nothing to do with entrepreneurship whatsoever.
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