SIX TABOO TOPICS OF CROATIAN POLITICS: No one wants to solve the problems with hooligans, real estate, healthcare…

The echoes of 'Mad Max' in a Croatian way at the gas station in Desinec will continue to fill the media and political space for days. But this is not a problem that arose when hooligans blocked the highway. It started even before Hajduk fans were banned from entering the Maksimir stadium, and even before they boarded the convoy to Zagreb. The problem of hooligans around sports fields (primarily football) is one of the Croatian taboo topics that politics dares not address because it is too risky for everyone. So, let’s take a look at the eternal topics that politicians, especially those in power, flee from.

1. Obsession with real estate

Croatians have become the largest European rentiers the moment all apartments were transferred for a pittance to 'subtenants' living in them, making us overnight owners of the largest housing stock. As many as 91 percent of Croatian citizens live in their own property, which is 20 percent higher than the EU average. And once we solved our own apartment, we started buying weekend houses. If some crazy government were to accidentally introduce a property tax, it would receive 91 percent of voters – for the opposing option. All this further fueled rentierism, and in accordance with the will of the 'majority', today zimmer frei is the most profitable business in Croatia, with outrageously undervalued tax contributions, laughable compared to the taxes that burden labor, even profit.

2. Healthcare without reform

The outburst of the head of the largest Croatian hospital – who publicly admitted to removing a healthy ovary from a woman and even published her name – is not a one-time affair, nor is it the result of an equally insane attitude towards a patient who was not allowed to have an abortion for a terminally ill fetus in any Croatian hospital. These are just superficial parts of the healthcare iceberg that hides a series of similar dramas. Ante Ćorušić and Vili Beroš, unfortunately, are not isolated cases, but the result of long-standing healthcare policies in which each subsequent hospital head typically creates even greater losses, and each subsequent minister endorses them. The medical lobby is so powerful and cohesive that we can bet that even such oversights will not be sanctioned. Therefore, we cannot expect any serious healthcare reform.

3. Dominance and arrogance of the state

The other day, economic analyst Damir Novotny reminded on the portal Direktno.hr that about 50 percent of all jobs are actually created by the public sector, which 'has very low productivity'. Perhaps the state pressure on business gets a bit lost in large Zagreb, but in smaller towns, the local state dictates even who will be appointed as a school janitor. The state can afford to owe wholesalers more than five billion kuna. The European Commission has just warned, according to Telegram.hr, about the average payment period from the public sector to companies of 59 days, compared to 50 days for payments among companies and 29 days in transactions between consumers and businesses. This problem is particularly exacerbated by inflation. And the dominant position incites arrogance. Thus, the Tax Administration has embarked on a 'tax massacre', as Jutarnji list called it: tax inspectors in a targeted inspection of large caterers assessed that the cost of food in the final price of a meal should not exceed 40 percent, and where they found that this share was higher, they decided to charge VAT on the difference, considering that it was not about real prices, but a way of concealing unreported invoices. And they imposed fines ranging from 500,000 to four million kuna! Of course, we should not expect changes in dominance and arrogance.

4. Subsidies instead of consolidation

For decades, the state has been throwing billions of kuna into agriculture, while production is decreasing or, at best, stagnating. Meanwhile, subsidies per hectare are an additional corruptive factor or a social measure that has caused fragmented, uncompetitive agriculture, and consolidation has been more than successfully – evaded. Only recently has private capital begun to consolidate holdings and achieve better yields. But this has nothing to do with the state, which has remained trapped in political trading in the system of 'one cow – one barn'.

5. The kuna is dying overvalued

For years, entrepreneurs, analysts, and even Lider’s journalists have warned about the overvaluation of the kuna and the unrealistic exchange rate. They barked, barked, until they got tired. Entrepreneurs are thus at least ten percent less competitive in the global market, but importers are correspondingly more competitive in Croatia than domestic producers. This – along with criminal transformation and privatization – has brought the industry to its knees, and new owners quickly sold off failed factories for the construction of future shopping centers. Only after the cleansing of the financial crisis and the pandemic, in which we lost tourist rent, did we realize that the industrial remnants (reliquiae reliquiarum) managed to adapt and compensate for the exchange rate inferiority. And they pulled Croatia out of the pandemic. So perhaps this exchange rate inaction and catering to trade and tourism has long-term helped the industry, which will in a few months send the overvalued kuna 'to Mirogoj'.

6. Hooligans in stadiums and beyond

And, last but not least, let’s return to hooliganism. There is no justification for this. However, such a police reaction can only deepen the problem. The authorities behave mostly local-patriotically in the relationship Zagreb – Split – they beat up visiting fans. Torcida, allegedly due to banners and drums, was not allowed into the stadium, while BBB staged a ten-minute fireworks display with also formally banned pyrotechnics. It is less risky for the authorities to confront 'our' and 'your' fans than to undertake a unified action against all hooligans (and not against real fans, who are always collateral victims both in stadiums and in Desinec). Because, after all, hooligans are the loudest of all, and they can be unpleasant for political ratings, and, indeed, for election results. So, gentlemen hooligans, do not worry, the state will remain with you, with a few bumps – for the sake of order…