Croatia urgently needs to define a national strategy

In addition to the current state and trends that do not indicate we are emerging from the crisis, we actually lack parameters by which we could assess what is good and what is not. Because of this, we waste time commenting on fiscalization, privatization of state companies, pre-bankruptcy settlements, bank bankruptcies, or similar daily political topics.

Today, Croatia has no document by which it could make consistent long-term decisions and evaluate them, apart from numerical indicators such as budget revenue, deficit status, public debt, investments, or other short-term goals.
Although there should not be companies without plans, economies without goals, and national economic policies without strategies, Croatia continues to ignore this.

National Consensus Without a national strategy and policy implementation, along with the corresponding ‘balanced scorecard’, every result is measurable only by the results of past transient times of aimless wandering. Thus, we are daily (and for some time now) witnesses to unsynchronized decisions (not just from this government), a situation in which certain strategic laws and decisions are made without a clear strategic framework and goal. The proposed law on strategic investments may be the best example that without a clear concept of what, where, and when we want someone to invest money, we cannot even define how to implement those investments. Everything is left to daily political needs and interests, which is why the manner in which these investments will be implemented is controversial. I wonder how we can implement industrial policy and define strategic investments, how we can define the tax system, how we can define the role of our own currency and exchange rate, or all other political-economic controversies to which we have no answer.
Without a national consensus on strategy and strategic goals and priorities that we will implement regardless of parties and party politics, we do not have and will not have performance metrics for either the government and ministers or public companies, and thus no framework for attracting foreign investors. Pre-bankruptcy settlements, privatization of public companies, competitiveness, and investment storms would probably then have a completely different meaning and provoke less debate than today. Perhaps the Law on Health Education would then be just the third priority of the curriculum reform. Until we set clear goals, all measures will be firefighting, controversial, and subject to (often) public boycott and those to whom they relate.

Milk and Wind Therefore, we are chasing almost insignificant shifts on competitiveness rankings that we believe should bring us new investments and investors, yet we do not achieve some strategic goals that have led some investors to invest in Croatia. An example is the dairy industry. Production quotas of 750 million liters of milk have long been secured, which prompted Lactalis or Vindija to invest. Today, however, our production has fallen from 650 liters to less than 450 million, and it continues to decline. Minister Jakovina may avoid meeting with milk producers, but I fear that in the end, Minister Mršić will have to deal with the surplus of workers. Does anyone think that this industry and current jobs will survive on raw material imports?
We can also talk about the strategic quota of 1200 MW of electricity generated from wind that has not materialized in HEP’s (OPS) implementation documents. It still stands at 400 MW of internal quota and issued approvals. Who will bear the consequences for all investors who continue to measure, receive approvals, and lease land, yet do not know when (and if ever) HEP will change its stance. And without entering the quota and HEP’s approvals, no bank wants to finance such projects. What does this mean for Končar, which has initiated the development and its own production of wind turbines, no one even asks.
We can take examples from the wood and construction industries or those regarding the usability and withdrawal of funds from EU funds. And so on indefinitely.
We are wasting time to define and achieve strategic national and economic goals daily in the new economic environment, from Zagreb to Osijek and Dubrovnik, Strasbourg, or Brussels. Faced with sophisticated methods of protectionism and global strategic games, Croatia must urgently define its long-term priorities in all parts of society, not just statistically comment on results and await rankings on this or that competitiveness scale. This is not a question of one government or one mandate, but of knowledge and ability to achieve set goals at all levels of society. Regardless of the party affiliation of those we have elected to achieve them.