Cheese

When the Croatian government gave in to the demands of protesting farmers, the minister of Economic Affairs said that he would forbid the import of cheese. Long live Croatian cheese, down with Gorgonzola and Roquefort. I could also say: long live paški sir, but then few of you would know what I meant. That's the problem with Croatian products: even the handful of products that are worth exporting (and that does NOT included Cedevita) are hardly know outside of the country.
I was seriously thinking of going to Billa (an Italian supermarket chain with branches in Croatia) to stock up cheese. But, as expected, the Croatian government had to break the promise it would forbid the import of cheese, as that is against all EU and World Trade Organization rules. Instead, it will try to raise the price of imported cheese. Same old protectionist story again: unproductive farmers receive help at the expense of ordinary citizens. Same goes for shipbuilding.
The Croatian government accuses other countries of dumping cheese (damping in Croatian) and unfair competition. Sure. The grass in Western Europe in greener, people work harder and the technology is more advanced. That is why the cheese is cheaper. If we follow the government's line of argument, holidays in Croatia should be made more expensive. Croatia has a lot of sunshine and a beautiful coastline and neither of them exists because of Croatian efforts, yet Croats reap the fruits. How unfair! Camping owners in Britain, Germany and The Netherlands can't compete with the Croatian sun, so booking a holiday in Dubrovnik should be taxed.

Border blockade

A group of thirty Croatian farmers have blocked a border crossing between Croatia and Bosnia at the village of Slavonski Šamac. They will keep blocking the border until "Zagreb" produces an agreement that makes "farming profitable again".

In Zagreb, meanwhile, vice prime minister Jadranka Kosor and Economics minister Damir Polančec are negotiating with the farmers. They refuse to talk to Božidar Pankretić, the minister of Agriculure, whom they seem to regard more a problem than part of a solution.


I went to the Ministry of Agriculture this morning to see what's happening. Well, not so much. People were sitting on the grass, having a drink, chatting and waiting. Police was massively present, but everything looked relaxed. The times of Matija Gubec, the legendary leader of a famous peasant revolt, are long gone.
Update: Famers and the government made a deal. They agreed upon a purchase price of 2,20 kuna (30 eurocents) for a liter of milk. Also the import of milk in milk products will be forbidden. I am not sure how that works in practice, but I doubt Milka chocolate will disappear from the shelves.

Peasants against farmers

Hundreds of farmers from Istria, Slavonia and Baranje drove their tractors to Zagreb yesterday and gathered at the Ministry of Agriculture, demanding higher guaranteed prices and financial support. They want to talk to prime minister Sanader and threaten to block Zagreb if their demands are not met. So far the traffic wasn't hindered too much. Today is a national holiday, many took a day off tomorrow, so there is no traffic to speak off.
Former boxer and current president of Croatian Farmers Union (Hrvatski seljački savez) Željko Mavrović distanced himself from the protesters and their rival peasant organizations. "Do something, don't just scream 'give me money'," he said. He accuses them of representing "private interests" only. (In conservative, half-socialist Croatia "private interest" still is a term of abuse.) In turn the peasants accuse Mavrović of representing only big farmers, as the members of his Croatian Farmers Union have on average much more land.
Croatian agriculture is dominated by peasants whose produce often can't compete with Western Europe. The prices of vegetables, fruit and dairy products in supermarkets aren't exactly low though. A liter of yogurts costs around 1,50 euro, milk 75 cents, cheese (of the worst possible quality) 7 euro per kilo. GDP, both nominal and per capita, in neighboring Slovenia is twice as high as Croatia's, yet almost everything is cheaper there: food, wine, rent-a-car, mineral water... Revealing if you know that the average Croatian family spends 40 percent of its income on food. The slogan on the tractor says "Protect domestic production". If the government listens to such demands, Croats will soon be spending half of their income on food.

The British conspiracy against Croatia

Croats love conspiracy theories. Also, they are very touchy when it comes to their beautiful homeland. Therefore, if someone criticizes Croatia it must be that that person has a reason, a hidden motive for doing so. After a critical BBC report about crime and corruption in Croatia, Croatian politicians resorted to stereotype conspiracy theories.
More about that later. First the critique on Croatia. Yesterday I referred to a BBC article, which was actually based on a BBC Radio 4 report. You can listen to it online. The essence is that on the surface Croatia is a fantastic country, but underneath... Corruption, organized crime, murder.
As if that was not enough, the The Economist ran a worrying article on Croatia too. Already the title "A Balkan state in balk" is considered offensive by many Croats, as they believe that Croatia is not a Balkan country. The article mostly concerns the Slovenian blockade of Croatia's EU negotiations.
The sting, however, is in this passage: "Even without the Slovene problem, the Croats have a lot still to do to satisfy Brussels. One big difficulty will be a reform of shipbuilding, which employs as many as 17,000 people, but survives only with huge subsidies. Other profferings of public largesse designed to sweeten voters before the local elections are also causing trouble. Many economists said the government could not afford the public-sector wage rises of 6% it announced in January. Now deteriorating public finances have forced a humiliating reversal of the decision. The IMF has joined critics in arguing that Croatia must shrink its public sector."
I think The Economist is perfectly right. Croats are led to believe that the border dispute with Slovenia is the only thing that keeps Croatia out of the EU. Economic reforms, which are so necessary, are hardly being discussed. A great deal of Croatia's moribund industry and agriculture might be wiped out by European competition once the protective tariffs are eliminated. It is very difficult to find out how high the import tariff (or legalized theft, if you like) for, say, wine is, but a glance at the wine section of a Croatian supermarket tells me it is pretty high. There are not many foreign wines on the shelves, and those available are ridiculously expensive.
How did Croatian politicians respond to these harsh articles? Let me start saying that I can perfectly understand that Croatia is unhappy with these negative reports. Foreign tourists are supposed to save the Croatian economy and tourism is a very vulnerable sector. If some shit happens in Kosovo, people rule out Croatia as a holiday destination. As simple as that.
Instead of taking some criticism to heart, prime minister Sanadar said: "Some regret that we have more and more tourists", suggesting that other countries envy Croatia for its competitive edge in tourism. Other ministers used words like "malicious", "biased" and "vicious". I heard Foreign Minister Gordan Jandroković saying that is it suspicious that this report came right at the beginning of the tourist season... Or take the opening sentence of the HRT website: "It seems that the British media are united in depicting Croatia as a Third World country". Well, we are talking about the state-run national TV here. Self-reflection is not their strongest point.
It reminds me of the Croatian anger over an Australian TV show about the apathetic attitude of Dubrovnik's police when an Austrian girl went missing. Why are they doing this to us? They hate us. They want to harm Croatia. That is the typical childish response.

Napolitanke, or about heroes and losers

Each nation has its peculiarities, habits and preferences that are sometimes unexplainable to foreigners. The culinary field is no exeption. As far as Croatia is concerned, I never quite understood why Croats love bananko, an artificially banana-flavored sweet, coated in chocolate. Its taste is, in one word, terrible.
Much of Croatia's chocolate and sweets are made by Kraš, a company with a indestructible positive image in the whole of former Yugoslavia. According to Kraš's website: Chocolate-coated banana, BANANKO, is a hit with the youngest consumers, though the adults cannot resist it either. Kraš's Bananko is the leading product within the category of foam candy bars on the Croatian market. According to the consumers' opinion, Bananko's key to success lies in the "magical combination of a soft banana-flavoured foam centre, covered with the traditional Kraš chocolate".
Other famous Kraš products are Ki-Ki, Bajadera and Dorina. If you want to know what's hiding behind these names, you can find the details in English on their site. That site speaks well for Kraš, as it in rather exceptional for Croatian companies to offer English information.
Kraš does export some of it products tot non-Yugoslav countries, but it has never reached the status of, say, Nestle, Lindt or Van Melle.
That might change, as somebody spotted a box of Napolitanke (cookies) in a scene from "Heroes", a SF-series. He or she put it on Facebook, and then the "news" found its way to every self-respecting newspaper. Have a look here for the crucial scene, in photo and video.
I could be very negative about this manifestation of provincialism and small-mindedness. But I won't. I am sincerely happy that a box of Croatian cookies found there way to an American series, even if only for a few seconds. Congratulations! Way to go! Next time, if someone spots a Croatian product, inform me.
If you live outside of Croatia (probably) and you know nothing about Croatian products (certainly), take a look at this website, although it's actually aimed at Croatian consumers who want to avoid buying foreign products.
Own products first!
Unless you live outside of Croatia. In that case: Croatian products first!
And please come for holidays to Croatia to spend your euros and dollars, because only strangers and Serbs can save the tourist season.

Economic nationalism

In times of crisis, economic nationalism lies in wait. Governments around the world abuse taxpayers' money to support industries that were already in decline before the financial crisis arose. In order to save a countable number of jobs in established industries, governments waste uncountable amounts of money and destroy in that way the jobs of tomorrow.
The Croatian government is already heavily involved in Croatia's economy. It spends, for example, billions of kunas on shipbuilding, which the European Union wants Croatia to privatise. Somebody calculated that since the year 2000 every Croatian taxpayer has paid 3800 kuna to the shipbuilding industry. That's almost an average net month salary! These facts are unfortunately wasted on the Croatian labour unions, that traditionally defend the privileges of a few workers at the expense of an entire nation.
In addition to that, the nation is being bombarded with a "Buy Croatian" campaign, backed by some labour unions and the Ministry of Economic Affairs. We are being told that when buying Croatian we do not only buy quality goods but we also contribute to Croatian employment. A Christmas gift to Croatian workers. Good wine needs no bush, you would say, but some people are prepared to do things they would not have done of their free will, just because the government tells them.
If you want to have a beer, you can visit a visually unattractive website where you can check which beers are truly Croatian and which are not. Karlovačko, one of Croatia's most popular beers, is not on the list as it is part of Heineken.
Unlike other ex-communist countries Croatia misses an enthusiastic generation that embraced the free market. It's rare to hear somebody defend the market economy on television. A revealing fact: the entry "Liberalism" in the Croatian Wikipedia is not longer than four lines. The Adriatic Institute for Public Policy seems to be the right institution to take a stand against the rise of economic nationalism, but we hear preciously little from it. The Adriatic Institute "emphasizes the importance of free market principles based on the rule of law, an independent judiciary, protection of property rights, economic freedom and limited government" but it's unclear what it does to get these topics higher on the agenda.