Smear campaigns

I woke up this morning with Croatian Radio 1 playing Fleetwood Mac's "Little lies". A little later an angry sounding man started to talk about some American of Croatian descent who's all the time trying to blacken Croatia in the foreign press. This frustrated American-Croatian unsuccessfully tried to buy some real estate and directed his anger against Croatia by writing about corruption in our beautiful homeland. Or something like that, I was half asleep.
Now I understand why the HR1 (Hrvatski radio - prvi program) speaker was so upset. The Wall Street Journal Europa featured an unfavorable article about Croatia. A few quotes:
"Croatia remains wracked by corruption, smuggling and organized crime. If it is a model for the Balkans, then the whole region is condemned to failure."
"Given Croatia's dismal performance, it's hard to see why it deserves the EU's praise. In Croatia, it has become quite dangerous for journalists, political opponents and entrepreneurs to raise the issue of political corruption."
"Instead of continuing to send cash, it might be a better idea for the EU to send judges and prosecutors who can assist in strengthening the rule of law and an independent judiciary."
"[T]he EU now risks importing the treacherous Balkan Route and its trappings of organized crime and corruption into the world's largest trading block."
What should I say about this? It's probably true. As far as I can understand (my Croatian is not fluent) something is wrong with the political culture here. You can see it in the details. Yesterday, prime minister Ivo Sanader refused to answer questions from MP's, for example, how many students actually pay a tuition fee. Instead he congratulated the opposition with its miserable elections results. In Britain Sanader's refusal the play the democratic game would be called contempt of parliament, but in Croatia all eyes are focused on the second round of the local elections (31 May).
The good news is that Natasha Srdoc, author of the WSJ article, is still around. She runs the moribund Adriatic Institute for Public Policy, which offers little more than links to some (mostly old) newspaper articles written by others. In a half-socialist country like Croatia the Adriatic Institute could promote the free market, liberty, free trade and so on. It could take a stance against the "let me study forever at your expense" students that block the faculties. It could tell ordinary Croatian consumers that they pay way too much for everyday products because of the unholy alliance between the government and (big) businesses. It could...
Let me end with a positive note. "President Mahinda Rajapaksa met Croatian President Stjepan Mesic on the sidelines of the Group of Eleven (G-11) Meeting at the Dead Sea in Jordan last Saturday. The two leaders agreed to further consolidate economic cooperation between Sri Lanka and Croatia. They agreed that much potential exists for cooperation in the fields of port development and shipbuilding. They also referred to the long-standing bilateral relations existing between the two countries emanating from the friendly relations established between Sri Lanka and former Yugoslavia within the framework of the Non-Aligned Movement. They pledged their commitment to expand these historic relations into new areas of cooperation in the future." I know a "new area": a Sri Lankan restaurant in Zagreb. Spice us up!

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.