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Election Programs: Political Parties Have Become Social Institutions

Early retirement for mothers, higher pensions, affordable housing, free kindergartens. At the same time, lower rental taxes, lower income tax. And on top of all that, better public services. This rosy picture of the future is being promised by political parties in their election programs these days, competing to entice voters with a more appealing depiction of tomorrow.

However, how will economic growth be achieved to support the fulfillment of these promises? To see what entrepreneurs can expect depending on which political current wins and whether certain sectors will benefit from the announced policies, we analyzed the details of the election programs published so far.

If Most finds itself in the winning coalition, the tourism sector could once again benefit. Hospitality providers are being offered a reduction in the VAT rate on drinks on a platter, and low-taxed rental providers in tourism could benefit as the threshold for entering VAT would be raised to 60,000 euros.

It is quite likely that after the elections, the construction sector could continue to rise as almost all parties are announcing the construction of affordable housing. Most plans to create a Croatian housing fund and abolish the property transfer tax for the purchase of the first home, while SDP wants to build fifteen thousand new apartments, and Možemo! is also announcing the construction of apartments for public rental. However, in the latter case, banks and the commercial sector will ‘suffer’ as the tax on their ‘superprofits’ is expected to finance these apartments. The Možemo! party is also targeting betting shops, which will be banned from advertising and will have their numbers reduced (How?; note a.), while debt collection agencies could lock their doors as banks will not be able to sell debts without the consent of the debtors.

On the other hand, HDZ has not yet specified what measures will achieve the desired growth of the Croatian standard to 80 percent of the EU average, and the only sector that Prime Minister Plenković particularly highlighted at the 20th HDZ Congress is agriculture. He promised that the gross added value of Croatian agriculture would exceed two billion euros, which means it should grow by about 20 percent over the four-year term compared to the data from 2022. That is not much of a success, as the data for 2023 is still unknown, and by the way, in 2022, the gross added value of agriculture grew by 18.2 percent compared to the previous year (largely due to inflation, not production growth). SDP also mentions a program for farmers, enabling them to increase agricultural production, and states that its focus will be on sustainable tourism, energy transition, and economic growth.

However, how to achieve that growth? That is already a question for which it is difficult to find an answer in the programs.

What political and economic analysts think about this topic can be read in the new digital and printed edition of Lider.

 

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