In the new issue, read about the growth of the domestic lobbying scene

LNG on Krk, the Pelješac Bridge, the Adriatic-Ionian Pipeline, and even the immense billions of euros within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. All of this is the result of active advocacy for Croatian interests in Brussels, or lobbying. However, lobbying, at least when viewed from our Croatian perspective, has a negative connotation. It is associated with corruption and other dishonorable actions, and the reason is simple – there is no regulation. Croatia is one of the few countries in the EU that does not have a lobbying law, while in the European Union, this type of ‘interest advocacy’ is strictly regulated and very transparent. So much so that every lobbyist not only must be registered in the EU Transparency Register, but also every one of their meetings with representatives of the executive branch in the European Parliament, the European Commission, or the European Council must be recorded and publicly disclosed. However, let’s be realistic, even that does not mean that sometimes a mistake in steps does not ‘slip’ to someone in the EU, whether intentionally or unintentionally… Ksenija Puškarić writes about the interesting world of lobbying in this week’s topic.

Tax policy, the perception of entrepreneurs, productivity, and the demographic catastrophe facing Croatia are currently in the focus of the Director General of the Croatian Employers’ Association Irena Weber, who took on this role at the end of last summer, during one of the most challenging times for entrepreneurship. Weber is primarily a financial expert who has held many managerial positions in the banking sector, advised the Government in restructuring and privatization processes, and since 2018, we remember her as the deputy of Agrokor’s extraordinary commissioner who withdrew from that company two years ago. She has not appeared in public, and she spent those two years as a member of the Management Board of Inspire Investments, in a much calmer job than today. As the director of HUP, Weber has returned to the cameras, protecting the interests of the association’s members, which today has more than 6,500 members, 30 branch associations, and 35 employees in various internal services. In addition to the problems of entrepreneurs, she has focused on strengthening HUP with top experts, and she spoke about her work with our Željka Laslavić.

About 350 euros more for electricity, 500 euros for gas, 150 euros for basic food items… If it weren’t for the Government’s interventions in energy and food prices, the average Croatian family would spend that much more annually just on these three essential items in their household budget. Additionally, household costs would further increase in all other segments because a chain reaction of price increases for all other products and services would occur. High inflation would further rise, consequently causing a decline in household consumption. A larger decline in consumption in Croatia would, in turn, affect GDP growth because private consumption constitutes a high 73 percent of GDP in Croatia. Although this scenario already sounds sufficiently catastrophic, it is nothing compared to the damage that rising energy prices without Government interventions would cause to businesses… Find out more about the subsidized economy in the text by Antonija Knežević.

Croatia is following the same policy that brought guest workers to Germany in the 1960s. Germany opened up to cheap labor to quell union unrest over higher wages. The same agenda is being implemented today in Croatia, and soon in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this way, the emigration of the local population is still encouraged, and space is opened for the so-called population substitution. Regarding the problems caused by mass emigration from Croatia and the demographic deficit, Kata Pranić spoke with demographer and scientist Tado Jurić for the new issue of Lider.

In your new issue, we also bring you the story of the Mepas Group, and among numerous topics, you can read about dedollarization, the coexistence of man and technology, judicial expertise, and L’Oréal’s acquisition of Aesop. We also bring you a feature on Large Companies in Small Places, and there is also an external feature on Komkultura.