Croatia

NOVANEWS Adelina Marini Russian Money Creeping into Croatia* What Is Going on in Croatia? “We should wake up from the winter slumber – the Romanians have caught-up with us and now the Bulgarians too are catching up! We should speed-up growth!” This is the sub-header of a thorough article [in Croatian] in Thursday's (September 1st) issue of one of the most prominent Croatian national daily newspapers Jutarnji list. Leading news in Croatia on Wednesday was that the country’s economy has grown faster than expected – 2.8% -- in the second quarter of 2016. And although the information of the Croatian statistics institute was cause for pride, but also arguments between leading political parties about who should get credit for this excellent economic performance, economic analysts warn th...

NOVANEWS Adelina Marini The idea behind the young tradition of the euinside weekly reviews is to focus on the most important events in the EU and then cast a glance at the periphery as well. For the week of March 7-13 we will change the direction and will start with Croatia, because developments there are the next episode of the Orbánisation of South-East Europe, should we presume that Orbánism is a form of authoritarianism, which is feeling comfortable in the European legal environment. Otherwise, the most important accent this week in the EU is the draft deal with Turkey, which caused sharp reactions, mainly because of the repressive media policy of Turkish officials. Several troubling events happened on the media scene in Croatia. We will list them by importance, not chronologicall...

NOVANEWS Adelina Marini The Balkans have again turned into a zone of tension and geopolitical competition, so starting today (September 1st) euinside begins doing a media review in the countries of former Yugoslavia. Aleksandar Vučić is again facing a choice – with Russia, or with the EU Starting this week everyone in the region is watching with tension and concern the way events are developing in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the leader of the Serbian entity in the country – Milorad Dodik - not ceasing to demand that a referendum is held on September 25 which is to approve or reject the proposal that January 9th is named official national holiday of Republika Srpska (RS), despite the ruling of the BiH’s Constitutional Court of last year and despite the appeal of the Peace Implementati...

NOVANEWS Adelina Marini, Zagreb Croatian diplomacy is transforming to put itself in service of the economy through a number of measures which the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs has enforced as of October 1st. After a deep analysis and a selection of the most appropriate European models Croatia is introducing economic diplomacy because, as deputy Foreign Minister Joško Klisović explained, the improvement of the Croatian economy should be a number one national interest. All embassies, consulates and honourable consuls will be engaged to actively work on the three main pillars of the Croatian economic diplomacy. Those are: export, foreign investments, protection of the interests of Croatian companies abroad. Not only will they be engaged, but their work will be checked every six m...

NOVANEWS Adelina Marini, Zagreb Less than a year after the regular parliamentary elections, a campaign is ongoing in Croatia for snap elections, scheduled for September 11th. The reason for a re-vote is that the fragile coalition government, led by the non-party Croatian emigrant Tihomir Orešković, fell in the beginning of this summer under the pressure of heavy scandals and intra-coalition tensions between the senior coalition partner – the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), led by Tomislav Karamarko - and the new political power at the Croatian political scene Most of independent lists, led by Božo Petrov. The government suffered a long and agonising fall, which at the end rotated entirely around the political survival of the HDZ leader Tomislav Karamarko, who later lost his leader po...