Plenković says the average salary has grown by 30% since he assumed office

Croatia, as with the rest of the world, is currently seeing spiraling inflation and surging fuel prices. This has additionally burdened the finances of Croatian citizens, as the country is slowly emerging from the economic woes brought on by the coronavirus restrictive measures.

As growing fuel prices and spiraling inflation are driving prices higher and higher in Croatia, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković took to social media on Saturday, where he pointed out that the average salary has grown considerably during his time in office. In his post Plenković said that based on the data provided by the State Statistics Bureau the average salary in Croatia in November of last year was 7 333 Kuna, while at the beginning of his first mandate, in October of 2016, it was 5 642 Kuna. This is an increase of 1 691 Kuna, or almost 30 percent. The prime minister went on to say that along with strong economic growth, reforms and European funds have put Croatia on the right path to achieve even faster growth and a better quality of life for Croatian citizens.

Meanwhile, in a bid to streamline the country’s cumbersome and expensive bureaucracy Plenković also announced that government has offered up 100 million Kuna as an incentive to units of local government to voluntarily merge into larger, less expensive and more functional units.

Currently, Croatia has 556 municipalities and cities, which five and a half times more than it did during communist Yugoslavia. This fragmentation of administrative divisions has long been viewed as a serious problem for years now, however, no government has been willing to seriously address the issue. Government has offered up this financial incentive, with even more money available if there is interest in the idea. However, Mihovil Škarica, from Zagreb University's Faculty of Law, doubts this measure will produce results: “So long as this is up to the whims of units of local government, this will not produce results. I think that this will produce a few examples of good practice in terms of municipalities forming joint organizations or kindergartens. What gives me a small dose of hope, is that we have at least recognized the problem and, in an albeit very lacking way, decided to try to resolve the problem.”

Source: HRT