The description of the ‘Macroeconomic Framework’ for revenues and expenditures of the budget for 2026 states that personal consumption will have the exclusive contribution to GDP growth. A slower wage growth and ‘presumably unshaken consumer sentiment’ are anticipated. It will be interesting to see how all of this will reconcile and result in ‘slightly slowed growth’, emphasizes Miodrag Šajatović, editor-in-chief of Lider, in this week’s ‘Ekonomalije‘.
Croatia had more than 25 billion euros available in the current budget period, including funds from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, but according to the Commission’s proposal, this amount will fall to 16.8 billion in the next budget framework. Perhaps more importantly, it will no longer include ‘free money’ from the MOO. Read more in this week’s current topic.
If the energy sector were only occupied with decarbonization and energy transition, it would have enough concerns, but with the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, sanctions, and general geopolitical instability, it has too many. Janaf has lost a major buyer in the Serbian, i.e., Russian NIS due to sanctions, and has not gained a new one in MOL, which will enjoy an exemption from sanctions on Russian energy sources for at least another year. We discussed this issue, the development of the energy network, and renewable energy projects with Vedran Špehar, State Secretary in the Ministry of Economy responsible for energy.
