The two main non-governmental weather services promise to fight the new law.
The State Hydrological and Meteorological Institute has drafted a new law on meteorological and hydrological activities, which has caused dissatisfaction with the private weather monitoring and forecasting services Crometeo and Istramet, reports Večernji List on October 14, 2017.
According to Crometeo and Istramet, the draft law makes it seems evident that the State Hydrological and Meteorological Institute (DHMZ) wants to introduce a monopoly in the field of meteorological information and to punish those who would publish weather information which would not be approved by a DHMZ commission.
Crometeo expressed dissatisfaction with the new legislative proposal on its Facebook profile. “We have put a black band on our Facebook profile as a protest against the scandalous proposal of the new Law on Meteorological and Hydrological Activities, which would, in reality, prohibit the operations of Crometeo and all similar associations in Croatia. We will not allow this, and we want to express our disappointment with the fact that the proposed law has not recognised the work of associations like ours. We are certain that we have immensely improved Croatian meteorology in the last 15 years. We are currently in discussions about our next steps, and our members and sympathisers will be informed in detail in the next few days,” announced Crometeo.
Istramet is also profoundly disappointed with the law. “Instead of co-operation between NGOs and state institutions, with the scandalous draft of the law, which is more appropriate for a Third World dictatorship, it seems that the DHMZ wants to introduce an absolute monopoly in the field of meteorological information, with the exception of eligible entities for which a commission would decide they have the right to inform the public,” wrote the Istrian meteorological association, adding that it was evident that the DHMZ’s goal was to ban their website, which will not be allowed.
The public consultation period for the new law started on 12 October and will end on 11 November.
“The public consultation process aims to collect comments and suggestions from the public about the draft Law on Meteorological and Hydrological Activities. All interested parties are invited to submit their comments and suggestions related to the text of the law through the e-Consultation app,” announced the DHMZ briefly.
Translated from Večernji List.
