Government Proposes Food Law

Croatian Lottery plans to achieve a total revenue of 452.2 million kuna this year, expenses amounting to 382.7 million kuna, and a pre-tax profit of 69.8 million kuna. A turnover of 1.059 billion kuna is planned. – The Croatian Lottery will contribute 261.1 million kuna to the state budget this year, which is 10.28 percent more money than last year – said the CEO of the Croatian Lottery, Vesna Bakran. An eight percent increase in the Croatian Lottery’s contributions to the budget can be expected based on VAT and a 17.32 percent increase from profit tax.

 The government has proposed a law to ratify the Agreement on Financing between the Government and the European Commission for the national Phare program for last year. This agreement is the basis for the non-repayable use of financial resources amounting to 61.062 million euros.

The European Commission approved financing for 20 project proposals under the Phare program last year at the proposal of the Republic of Croatia, and in the previous two years, this amounts to 160 million euros. For the previous two years, the government submitted the Food Law to the Parliament, which will cost the budget this year 101.9 million kuna, along with an additional 7.7 million kuna needed for the State Inspectorate. All funds in the budget are secured. This law aims to control food ‘from farm to table,’ said the relevant minister Petar Čobanković, meaning it is necessary, for example, to regulate the area of food and animal feed safety, especially hygiene, then official control, genetically modified food, and labeling.

The new food safety system, known as the hygiene package, has been applied in the EU since the beginning of last year, and it places the primary responsibility for food and animal feed safety on the entities involved in food business, i.e., food and animal feed and animal owners. This system also introduces self-control, more effective and rational conduct of official control, and establishes a single competent authority for food safety. 

In our country, the Food Agency will play the largest role in this, which will assess risks and inform the public about the results of that assessment. The government proposed the ratification of the Guarantee Agreement between the Republic of Croatia and the EBRD for the Rijeka bypass project worth 85.57 million euros.   (Lidija Kiseljak)