Croatian diaspora – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Changing Face of Croatia

May 7, 2023 by inavukic 9 Comments

On my last visit to Croatia the devastating earthquake in Zagreb in late March 2020, and dozens of smaller ones that followed, amidst extreme Covid 19 pandemic lockdowns that included public transport stoppage, saw me cut my visit short and leave Croatia and return to Australia. Then more devastating earthquakes in December 2020 in Petrinja, Sisak, Glina and surrounding towns, nearby Zagreb, left the country in utter despair from ruins left, homeless people by the thousands.

Three years on, the devastation caused by the earthquakes, despite ample solidarity funds offered by the European Union Solidarity Fund purses, to help finance the restoration of key infrastructure in the field of energy, water and wastewater, telecommunications, transport, health and education, not much until recently has been achieved in utilising those funds that in essence meant a lifeline for multitudes affected by the earthquakes. The word on the streets is that, incredulously, the Croatian government has, in the reality of lack of domestic labour, steered away from contracting the essential restoration building works to foreign companies. Indeed Croatia had continued seeing hundreds of thousands of work age people leave the country for a better life elsewhere. Some temporarily some permanently. Official statistics show some 450,000 have left Croatia in the past ten years, the bulk of working age, creating a demographic crisis for Croatia.

Furthermore, the EU Solidarity Funds are not designed to assist with the needed restoration of private homes and dwellings and the fact that most had had no insurance left people at the mercy of the poor national budget available for national disasters such as earthquakes. Nevertheless, recent legislative provisions address assistance to private residences damaged by the earthquakes. Owners or co-owners who are placed in containers or other forms of temporary accommodation will be supported at the expense of the state budget of the Republic of Croatia, as well as beneficiaries of the right to co-finance the rent, then owners or co-owners who are recipients of social welfare and persons with disabilities, in the status of veterans or other status according to a special law. The burning problem in the realisation of the latter financial supports lies in the fact that the state budget is inadequate to cover all needs in a timely manner.

Currently, Zagreb is akin to a lively building site. Earthquake damages on buildings and other infranstructures are being repaired on quite a large scale, as if racing against time. But then, general elections are due next year and the danger of losing the unused EU Solidarity Funds is real. The reluctance to engage foreign construction companies during the last couple of years has finally been replaced by import of foreign workers, many of whom are reportedly an unskilled labour force but as far as I can see, a hard-working labour force from China, India, Pakistan, Philippines, neighbouring countris like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia etc.

This year, according to some estimates, up to 200,000 residence and work permits for foreigners could be issued in Croatia. More than 120,000 foreign workers have already been issued work permits and this is visible on construction sites, hospitality, waste management … As to solving the resulting homelessness from earthquakes devastation most affected families are still accommodated in converted shipping containers and mobile homes while others have moved temporarily to ancestral homes away from the devastated cities and towns.

There is almost no sector in Croatia that does not employ foreign workers. This affects all industries, not just construction. Croatian employers usually employ workers from the region. However, if they run out, they resort to those from distant countries particularly from the Far East. In the first three months of this year, the most foreign workers are from Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed by Nepal, Philippines, Serbia, India, Kosovo and North Macedonia. According to reliable surces every fifth construction worker in Croatia is a foreigner and this is pparent upon visiting the many constructin sites.

Currently, as many as about 520 agencies are active in Croatia for mediating the import of labour. Construction workers, delivery workers, caterers, cooks, postmen. Some industries rely more and more on foreign labour. Agencies are often shut down, and new ones are opened. There are more and more bad experiences, so foreigners pay to come, and then the working conditions in many cases are reported to be not even close to what they expected. Increased attention from government agencies is afoot, attending to curbing possible exploitation of foreign workers.

„Foreign workers must not be exploited but accepted as equal members of the economic system. People who today exploit workers in the worst way should be removed from the market, punished the most severely and thus show that we are not a society that profits from other people’s pain, but a country of opportunities for everyone,” concluded Irena Weber, chief director of the Croatian Association of Employers/HUP, at a gathering last week and said that we should not call those who exploit other people’s pain employers because they are not.

„I call on state institutions to resolve this as a matter of urgency ,” she said.

Employment Minister Marin Piletic, who addressed the gathering immediately after Weber, did not give the impression that he had heard what the chief director of HUP had said. He pointed out that in Croatia, “124,000 foreigners, a population larger than the city of Osijek, have sought happiness in Croatia”, that no one could have even thought of this a few years ago, when the number of foreigners was measured in several thousand, and that Croatia must start thinking about the Strategy for importing foreign workers.

„The Ministry of Internal Affairs has taken responsibility for adopting a Strategy on immigration policy for the first time by the end of 2023, not only on the import of labour, but also on the attraction of foreign students and the return of Croatian emigration,” Minister Piletic continued, not referring to everyday examples of reported exploitation of foreign workers, the slave-owning treatment some are exposed to and the lukewarm or no reaction of the state that Piletic represented.

Haphazzard approach to key problems and questions for the country have evidently defined Croatian governments for the last 25 years, since the final end od war of Serb occupation of parts of Croatia in 1998. I have written about that several times as Croatia transitioned from communism in ways that stifled demcracy and the rule of law, more than applied it. Corruption at all level incuding judiciary. National stratgies that would go hand in hand with the War of Independence values – practically nonexistent.

The current government that has taken the reins for the country in 2016, and those before it, have shouted from the rooftops the calls for Croatian diaspora to return to Croatia. But alas, this has been a mere lip service for political points. No national strategy developed or followed to enable and support such a return from the diaspora. Small steps such as the establishment of the State Office for Croats Living Abroad has been a disaster and more a vessel of photo-opportunity for government ministers to put on a show of government’s „close” relationship to its diaspora (which is far from real) than real actions to enable a return. Most Croats that have returned from the diaspora have been left to their own devices and knowhow than helped by the government with view to easing their transition into their ancestral homeland.

At least, we now have a changing picture on the streets of Croatia with foreign workers that should reap benefits for Croatia in the field of earthquake disaster relief and pumping up the needed tourism workforce and a hope that the government will finally develop and adopt national strategies for the return of its Croat emigration. Suffice to say, Croatia’s demographic landscape is at crisis point and has been for at least a decade. Lots of talk in that period but little action to enable improvement of the demographics. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Changing Face of Croatia, Croatia, Croatia earthquakes, Croatian diaspora, Croatian ppulation, European Union Solidarity Fund, Foreign Workers in Croatia, Irena WEber, Marin Piletic, transitioning from communism

Croatia: 2021 Census – Disastrous Downward Spiral in Population and Demographics

October 2, 2022 by inavukic 2 Comments

During the past week the 2021 Census results in their entirety and detail are out for Croatia and the fact that there is less Serbs living in Croatia, less than 34% of total population in towns under which law of bi-lingual signage on public buildings, offices and institutions is regulated, has hit hard the politicians in Croatia pursuing the interests of Serbia within Croatia. The Census has shown that Croatia’s population is comparatively and significantly lower by 413,056 persons or 9.64 percent than what it was in the 2011 Census. To compare this within the 912,432 (18.7 percent) people lost in Croatian population since 1991 (beginnings of Serb aggression against Croatia) then the last decade has lost almost half of the three-decade loss! That is indeed alarming.

According to the 2021 Census final Bureau of Statistics report, Croatia’s population is 3,871,833, of which 1,865,129 are men (48.17 percent) and 2,006,704 are women (51.83 percent). The 2021 Census shows that the share of Croats in the national structure of the population is 91.63 percent, Serbs are 3.20 percent, followed by Bosniaks with 0.62 percent and Roma with 0.46 percent in Croatia. 99.24 percent of the population included in the census have Croatian citizenship, while foreign citizens account for 0.74 percent or 28,784. According to religious affiliation, there are 78.97 percent Catholics in Croatia, 3.32 percent Orthodox, and 1.32 percent Muslims. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics states that there are 4.71 percent of non-believers and atheists, while 1.72 percent did not answer the question about religion.

The total number of inhabitants decreased in all counties across Croatia and compared to the 2011 Census the largest relative decrease in the population number was found to be in the Slavonia-Syrmia (Srijem), Eastern continental part of Croatia that saw horrific destruction and ethnic cleansing of Croats and non-Serbs during the 1990’s Serb aggression against Croatia. Hence, the largest decreases in population compared to 2011 are shown in 2021 Census as follows: Vukovar-Srijem County 20.28%, Sisak-Moslavina County 19.04%, Pozega-Slavonia County 17.88%, Brod-Posavina County 17.85% and Virovitica-Podravina County 17.05%.

The 2021 Census also shows that in Croatia the share of the population aged 0 to 14 is 14.27 percent, and the share of the population aged 65 and over is 22.45 percent. With high unemployment and low job creation figures Croatia’s pension and welfare system is bound for total ruin and unsustainability unless, of course, state foreign debt and EU handouts increase and stay rooted as the main bolts holding up for many a barely adequate living standard on life-support.

What happened to the almost 10 percent of population lost in the past decade in Croatia is the question to which the answer automatically comes to the lips of most: overwhelmingly – emigration! Leaving one’s homeland in search of a better life and work. Low birth rate accounts for a lesser decline in this drastic and alarming population decline. Women in Croatia of child-bearing age have an average of 1.44 children, which is not only below the 2.1 needed for replacing a country’s population, but it is among the lowest in the countries of the region and not enough by far to gather enough taxes towards paying for pensioner outputs.

The 2021 Census data did not surprise demographers, but neither did it surprise the Croatian public, since experts have been warning for years that Croatia is demographically impoverishing, that the impoverishment is accelerating and that it will have negative implications on numerous segments of life and work. With these Census results, the momentum of depopulation has been confirmed. Nothing surprised here, nothing happened that was not expected. Despite all the calls of alarm to governments in at least 15 years to actively intervene in the issue of demographic revitalisation, there have been no or very little positive developments, but, rather, Croatia is collapsing demographically more and faster.

If we take into account that Croatia was (an unwilling) part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, of Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1931, and thirty years later part of the communist regime of Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (known as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1963), until independence in 1991, the population structure itself was significantly different in terms of parameters such as nationality and age structure. In 1991, which will be remembered for the beginning of the horrific Homeland War that arose in the brutal Serb aggression against Croatia, the population of independent Croatia was 4.7 million. The war of Serb aggression against Croatia, which destroyed and displaced hundreds of thousands of human destinies, ten years later proved to be undoubtedly the biggest, if not the only, culprit for as many as 350,000 people less in the total population number recorded in the 2001 Census. A decade after that, in 2011, which sealed the period of one of the largest numbers of unemployed, economic crisis and political turmoil, a minus of another 150 thousand people was recorded. 2021 Census alone reduced the population of Croatia by more than 400,000. The young, thirty-year-old country lost a quarter of its total population since 1991, almost half of which was lost in the past ten years.

The structure of the population, according to demographic forecasts, showed an increase in the number of older people, because the birth rate is declining. Quite logical. A policy that omits clear goals of education that can be implemented in practice and the encouragement of employment in long-term sustainable sectors, a housing policy that does not consider the standards of young people at the beginning of their independent living, the absence of a clear, strong pro-natal policy and numerous other far-reaching measures have put Croatia in a position that we would not wish on anyone. Perspective, prosperity and well-being have become nothing more than black-humoured nouns, the true meaning of which no one except a handful of the privileged Croatian caste had the opportunity to enjoy. Maybe they won’t.

This is not acceptable from the point of view of Croatian national interests and some solution must be found. The most obvious solution lies in the wealth of numbers, demographic and economic potential that lie within the Croatian diaspora. Everyone knows that it has been staring Croatia proper in the eyes for more than two decades. Croatia’s Presidents, Prime Ministers, Parliamentarians…the birds in the trees… have all been singing praises to the diaspora, calling masses to return. Yet no firm, clear and positive result minded pathway and national strategy, bar small snd pathetic government conditional cash handouts of up to 200,000 kuna (26,000USD) upon return, have been put in writing and legislation by any of them. All simply pretending they want Croats from the diaspora to return yet official government assistance for this has been nothing more than a degradable, fleeting band aid!

When the initial results of 2021 Census came out in January 2022 Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic attributed the cause to the population decrease to Croatia’s entry into the European Union in 2013. As a reminder, as the economic crisis in Croatia lingered, unemployment hovered above crushing and devastating 46 percent , Croatia was, naturally, hit by a large wave of emigration after joining the EU, especially in 2014 and 2015. In the last wave of emigration, Croatian citizens mostly chose Ireland and Germany as places for a new life. Although about 9 percent in 2021 unemployment rate in Croatia still factored as the highest among the EU states. On course, as numbers of working age people emigrated from Croatia its unemployment rate showed up in figures of reduced percentage of unemployment. It seems that EU funds have helped to somewhat patch up job opportunities in Croatia but obviously not enough is done to attract significant percentage of working age people lost to Croatia in past decade and beyond.

The results of the latest Croatian census have shown the brutally real reasons for disappearing classrooms and long waiting lists for places in nursing homes and aged care facilities that have long been well over a decade long. It is not known who, when and if the Croatian governments will even try stopping this indescribably worrying trend. Because, if Croatia officially remains a nation of old people, will it simply turn into just one huge summer holiday house for foreigners and seasonal returnees with deep pockets? Will young people continue to leave Croatia or will those who, despite everything, decide to stay in it just surrender to the flow of time and face their own old age in insecurity and on the verge of poverty? And maybe over the edge?

The Prime Minister then suggested that population decline in Croatia was about “broader trends” while, apparently, referring to the trends of emigration of the population from the countries of Eastern Europe that had also joined the EU. To me it all resembles excuses and meaningless rhetoric to pass the time. People that emigrated from Croatia are in their majority still living within the EU, and hence, the government should factor into Croatia’s forward planning and national strategy for economic development and population boost from the lost pool of Croats living outside Croatia.

Some readers here may remember that many Croatians did not accept the 2011 Census results, according to which Serb minority was given the right to bilingualism and the official use of the Cyrillic alphabet in that city of Vukovar. Many suspected the number of Serbs in Vukovar was fabricated to make up the needed minimum 34% of total population for the town and many protested, some were fatally wounded by police for trying to smash the bilingual sings on buildings, many arrested and indicted for criminal act of wilful destruction of public property etc.

According to Croatia’s Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities, equal official use of the language and script used by members of a national minority is achieved in the territory of a local self-government unit when members of a particular national minority make up at least a third of the population of such a unit. The almost well-deserved vengeful ecstasy many in Vukovar and wider may feel regarding the decrease of Serb population in Vukovar, especially, fits into the fact that Vukovar has been named the city of piety; Serb aggression against it in 1991 was horrific and genocidal. War crimes, especially rapes, have not been at all addressed properly and Serb rapists walk the streets of Vukovar unpunished and unhindered. Amnesty for war crimes prosecution was given to multitudes of Serbs from Vukovar area as bargaining chip in 1998 in the process of peaceful reintegration of that area into Croatia that had until then been occupied by Serb rebel forces and forces from Serbia.

Some politicians and journalists, especially those denying the Serb aggression against Croatia in the 1990’s and trying very hard to equate the victim with the aggressor, will try to convince the world’s public that a reduced number of Serbs living in Croatia is a result of the rights of minorities denial and erosion by Croatian politics. What garbage! Croatia stands out as a country that provides its ethnic minorities with more right, including parliamentary seats, than most countries in the world. It would be correct to say that the Census 2021 results that show less Serbs have occurred in the same way as the reduction of Croats: economic basket case country leading to emigration for work purposes. Some of the rights ethnic minorities have and live in Croatia, such as seats in the Parliament, are often abused by the very minorities who choose not to put Croatia’s interests in the first place by their personal interests. For instance, the Serb parliamentary group in Croatia peddles more towards Serbia’s interests than towards Croatia’s. And the tragedy of this is that those Serbs in the Croatian parliament do not represent the Serbs who fought with Croats to defend Croatia during Serb aggression, but the Serbs associated with the aggression via family and local community connections; they belong to the Croatian rebel Serbs lot. They have no right to speak with representative authority and credibility about minority rights of Serbs in Croatia because they represent a minority within the Serb minority. But they are viciously loud ad politically corrupt and all but suffocate the Croatian Serbs who defended Croatia from Serbs and Serbia. What a pity! Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Croatia, Croatia Census 2021, Croatian diaspora, Demographics in Croatia, emigration, opulation decline, Population in CRoatia

Applying For Croatian Citizenship Made Easier!

September 25, 2022 by inavukic 13 Comments

It’s about time that the process for applying and obtaining Croatian citizenship is made simple. The days have arrived it appears when some dreaded red tape or fear of receiving wrong information from some grumpy staff at consular offices and we must thank for this the clever individuals from the Croatian diaspora who have invented this App.

The “CitizenHR” app has just a couple of weeks ago been released on Apple and Google Play stores. Simply search for the App and access it. It is making Croatian citizenship simple.

The app is designed to help you be clear about what path to citizenships are available to you to pursue. It lets you know what documents you need prior to visiting the consulate and lets users browse a list of experts including, translators, lawyers, and other experts to compare and get their citizenship documentation completed in a faster time and for a cheaper price.

Developed in partnership with the Croatian Diaspora by Sydney-based Founder and CEO of online social network Pleme, as well as President of the Australian leg of CroDiaspora, Nikolas Kraljevic and developer Mate Pavkovic from Zagreb, Croatia (Founder and President of CroDiaspora not for profit organisation https://crodiaspora.com ), the app is aimed at diaspora Croats or people of Croatian descent, as well as being a valuable resource for non-Croats or to help with visas for the growing community of global digital nomads. With Pleme App we have built an online community and app for Croatians to network globally. The aim of this endeavour is to help local Croatians and the wider diaspora connect and communicate in a dedicated place and foster better connections,” states on the website Nikola Kraljevic https://pleme.app/

The following is the information about the CITIZENHR App from the web:

“WHAT IS CITIZENHR?

CitizenHR is an app specifically a Croatian Citizenship calculator that offers a way to make obtaining Croatian citizenship cheaper and easier to users for free.

FASTER CROATIAN CITIZENSHIP

CitizenHR is a Croatian Citizenship calculator app to help Croatian Diaspora and those with a special interest or affiliation to Croatia to be better prepared and educated for the Croatian Citizenship process which ultimately results in a faster citizenship process.

WHY CITIZENHR?

In 2021, we saw an increase in interest from the Croatian community and digital nomads and visitors to obtain citizenship and move to Croatia. We developed some smart algorithms to ease some of the commonly reported pain points and provide a free solution to the community with CitizenHR.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

CitizenHR works by entering your mail and answering 30 questions which powers our algorithm to determine what are the available paths to citizenship. From there we connect you with experts for translation or legal advice and show you the closest Embassy or Consulate to kickstart your application.

BENEFITS

The goals of CitizenHR are provide the following Benefits to users:

1. Boosting the network: Boosting the number of citizens and your potential network as a user of CitizenHR.

2. Smoother experience: Providing a smoother user experience for your citizenship application.

3. Suggesting Experts: Locate the right expert in a few clicks.

4. Drive down costs: Users can compare and contrast expert fee’s and get the best price on document translation or services prior to lodging their application.

LANGUAGES AVAILABLE

CitizenHR is available in Croatian, English, Spanish, German, Italian, French and Portuguese.

THE APP IS FREE

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/citizenhr/id1635720655

https://pleme.app/”

As more and more people embrace the smart and versatile mobile phone age, the number of consumers f different services and products online continues to multiply each day to billions. Mobile is becoming not only the new digital hub, but also the bridge to the physical world. That’s why mobile will affect more than just digital operations — it will transform business and communities. And Pleme App is active in helping create better communities. The CitizenHR App is certainly a great way forward as it facilitates so well the initial and obligatory process in applying for and obtaining Croatian citizenship.

_{Above:Nikola Kraljevic (L) Mate Pavkovic (R) Photos: Pleme.App and CroDiaspora.com}

Croatian government would do well by mobilising more the advances in technology

Clearly most if not all Croatian government agencies/ministries are struggling to keep up with technology rollouts. Counter to the proactive approach taken by many businesses in the private sector to rapidly implement digital transformation initiatives, agencies/ministries such as Internal Affairs (for citizenship and visas) and taxation etc have evidently struggled to keep up with increased demand for more user-friendly electronic facilitation, despite the existence of the rather laborious e-citizen (e-Građanin) online portal. Unlike in some countries such as Australia, USA, Canada, UK etc mobile phone Apps are practically non-existent under the Croatian government service provision. By failing to stay in lock step with modern tech environments, Croatian government agencies are providing a poor user experience to its citizens – particularly those who live in Western countries of the diaspora. The online consumer experience is nothing new — we’ve been using the internet to do practically everything for over 25 years. By overhauling security, implementing real-time observability, and using data to drive decision-making, government agencies would be prepared for future challenges, while delivering a stellar user experience. But maybe there is no real will for that in the Croatian governing politics. Perhaps the outdated manner of doing business with the public contains too many steps that are conducive to bribes and corruption for any notable will to modernise in step with technology to be put in place (?). Croatians living abroad, in the diaspora, especially those contemplating a return or investment, need access to online services and communication more than ever, yet Croatian government websites have continued to fail them despite forever shouting from the rooftops how very much they want Croats from the diaspora to return and invest. The tools and technology to increase and speed up these issues of interest are out there, and it’s time that they are deployed. If the government itself does not have the expertise required, then surely funds can be made available for external consultancies.

Along with debt accumulation and economic uncertainty, the lingering likelihood of another global economic crisis are provoking discontent among citizens. With corruption and nepotism running high people justly wonder whether the government is truly working for the public interest or only for just a few. Such disenchantment is eroding the foundations of democratic system and requires urgent action to strengthen the legitimacy of public institutions. There are signs that people’s trust in their government remains stubbornly lower than ever before. By taking a people-centric approach to policy making and service delivery, the government can rebuild trust in the public administration, improve the effectiveness of public action and better respond to the global and domestic challenges the country faces. Furthermore, digital technologies are changing social and civic communities and how people participate in, and experience, civic and political life. These technologies, the growing availability and use of data, as well as services provided by the private sector that are considered as benchmarks, are transforming how public goods and services are produced and consumed at a global scale. This, in turn, affects people’s expectations about how governments should work and provide services. Increasingly, people want to interact with their governments in more efficient ways, including through digital platforms, and they expect the same quality of service regardless of the channel chosen to access the service. Information and communication technologies, when implemented appropriately, have helped simplify government processes, eliminate paper-based transactions, and established single points of access to the public administration. Expectations of multitudes that the Croatian government should be more in step with technology advances to provide access to and usage of public services are entirely justified. A better relationship with the private sector, especially the innovative one, would go a long way towards meeting the needs of Croats living in the diaspora intent on, desirous of return and investment. Let’s hope it happens. Ina Vukic