What happened to the discussion on key economic topics?

11.04.2018.

Our Croatian reality is quite interesting. At least for those who live for and from politics. It's never boring. Political instability spikes us on average every six months. Thus, we as a state, and so are the holders of executive power, are increasingly dedicated to the arrangement of political alliances and parliamentary majority. It could be said that we are in a latent election campaign: whether it's about those in power (whose communication often involves significant pre-election promises, an example of this is new Veteran Law which produced 5,000 new military disability claims) or those in opposition. After all, this political instability produced the first extraordinary elections in the recent Croatian history (2016) as well as the political shift in the Parliament (2017). New elections are now being called again, and the discussions on accepting the Istanbul Convention have paralyzed all other things that are  important for this country, for our economy and ultimately for reducing the pressure to emigrate.

Of course, this position on pre-discussion of the Istanbul Convention does not mean that it is irrelevant. While the executive authority deals with the Istanbul Convention, at the same time, 100,000 trading companies, almost the same number of crafts and some couple of hundreds of thousands of OPGs have been unsuccessfully wasting more than a decade on pointing to themselves. And therefore for these hundreds of thousands of companies in the Croatian economy, I also call the gallant debate on a few bottom issues. Of course, in these discussions, CEA will be enthusiastically involved with its proposals and arguments for or against specific solutions. So let's start with the most important ones.

Reducing public spending is the mother of all changes and internal adjustments. Seriously catching up with this important task would lead to several fundamental changes: tax system corrections that would reduce our employees' wage pressure  at the current level of average gross wages for our workers to an acceptable level. The strategic goal of reducing public spending would lead to the necessary restructuring of public companies (increasing their efficiency while reducing operating costs, thus reducing the pressure on the cost of their services to citizens and businesses). In addition, there is no serious reduction in public spending or no change in territorial organization of the country and decentralization (576 cities, municipalities, counties lead to fragmentation that reduces efficiency and increases potentials for the production of privileged hierarchies). Reducing the number of territorial units will also lead to a reduction in the pressure on non-taxable ones whose major generators are the local self-government units.

The second great area I think should change and be debated instead of the ones we are witnessing are deep changes in the judiciary system. All current analyzes (number of judges per 100,000 inhabitants, number of cases per judge, duration of the process, perception of corruption, uneven court practice ...) show the seriousness of the problem of justice. If we add normative production (law number) and statelessness (frequent changes) to this litigation, then a clear legal picture of the country is clear.

back to top
back to top