June the 30th, 2023 – This week in Croatian politics, we’re gearing up to mark an entire decade of Croatian EU membership, fining misbehaving tourists and more.
HDZ claims the Croatian public is enjoying better and better conditions
Strange, I know. Given the fact that we’re still in the post-pandemic period and currently experiencing war in Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could really claim this. Inflation has hit the pockets and bank accounts of almost everyone, and nobody is immune to rising costs. Still, in the weird world of Croatian politics, HDZ has claimed that Croats are living better, while HDZ’s opposition claims the opposite.
The HDZ government is “handling public finances responsibly”
MPs from HDZ said in parliament that the government handles and manages public finances “responsibly”. They also claimed that the Croatian public now live better than before. The latter of these two claims will likely result in a raised eyebrow or two, and with good reason. I digress. The opposition claims that the public is dealing with huge debts, and that prices are twice as high as they were before following Eurozone accession and thanks to inflation.
Croatian economic growth stood at 6.3% in 2022
“Despite all the challenges we’ve faced in the last few years, the energy crisis, the war in Ukraine, and before that the coronavirus pandemic, the government has always pursued a responsible fiscal policy,” claimed Grozdana Peric (HDZ) during the parliamentary debate on the annual report on the execution of the State Budget for 2022.
“The growth of the economy in 2022 was 6.3 percent, which is significantly higher than in most other European countries, higher total revenues were achieved and grew faster than expenditures, the government also took care of the economy, investments and of the public,” she stated. While it is true that HDZ did quite the remarkable job of introducing certain measures at a rapid pace, most will probably stop there when it comes to showering praise on the party.
People in Croatia are now living better
“Never before have we had such consolidated and stable public finances, and that’s a fantasti success of this government,” Danica Baricevic (HDZ) pointed out. Her party colleague Majda Buric then noted that the Croatian economy is one of the fastest growing in the entire EU.
“It’s a fact that in the last few years, life has been getting better and better in Croatia, whether the opposition wants to admit that or not,” asserted Stipan Saslin (HDZ) during this same parliamentary debate. The opposition, however, has a wildly different opinion.
“Salaries and pensions are failing to keep up with inflation and as a result of that, people now live drastically worse than they did before,” said Marijan Pavlicek (Sovereignists/Suverenisti). He claimed that Croatia has been living beyond its means for years now and more or less existing on debt. He believes that the country is now heading into debt slavery territory, and that this is also shown in the report. “If the tourist season doesn’t achieve the expected results, the hole in the state budget will become even bigger,” Pavlicek stated.
Deputy Split Mayor Bojan Ivosevic claims that misbehaving tourists have already been fined more than 30,000 euros
You may have recently read about Split clamping down on unruly tourists by introducing harsher fines for all kinds of unwanted behaviour. From urinating in public to consuming alcohol in certain locations, you’ll now need your wallet ready if you’re planning on disrespecting this glorious old Dalmatian city.
While not everything functions that smoothly in Croatian politics, Split’s deputy mayor Bojan Ivosevic believes that the move is working well. He noted that in the first 28 days of the summer tourist season in Split, over three hundred fines were collected for disturbing public order and peace.
Since the beginning of the tourist season, residents of Croatia’s second largest city have been complaining that drunk tourists are sleeping out on the streets, urinating in the city centre and disturbing public order and peace in a multitude of other ways.
Ivosevic has stated that fines for over 30,000 euros have already been issued, which is reduced to 15,000 euros if paid within three days. He pointed out that the current collection is over 40 percent in three days.
Croatia gears up to celebrate a decade of European Union membership
On July the 1st, 2023, the Republic of Croatia officially joined the EU. The move was of enormous value and importance for the Croatian politics and the totally altered view of a country at war just 20 years before on the international stage. Huge numbers of projects have since been realised thanks to Croatian access to European Union funds, and on the other side, the demographic crisis that Croatia has been grappling with for decades grew worse thanks to the dropping of borders and restrictions for Croatian citizens across the then 28-member bloc.
In those ten years, Croatia has fulfilled a very impressive and praiseworthy number of strategic and geopolitical goals. From the completion of the Peljesac bridge to entering Schengen and the Eurozone, this little country of less than four million inhabitants has moved proverbial mountains.
Just 30 years ago (or 20 if we’re looking back at July 2013), Croatia was fighting for its independence from Greater Serbian aggression and the tumultuous collapse of the former Yugoslavia, a totally failed experiment of a state. Horrific massacres took place on these lands, and many of those who went missing during the war years have never been found. To speak more precisely, their bodies have never been recovered.
The bloody Balkan wars gave way to an independent state and a Serbia that was shunned and isolated by most of the then European community. Going from a disenchanted former Yugoslavian nation to an independent one, and then later a fully fledged EU member state, joining Schengen and then dropping the kuna for the euro is no small feat in a mere decade.
Whatever your views of those in Croatian politics, and there are many who absolutely do not deserve the slightest of praise, it goes without saying that much has been done to turn Croatia from the victim in a warped Greater Serbian wet dream to a well respected, harmonious European Union country.
