JULY & AUGUST 2012 |
www.opp.org.uk
REPORT
CROATIA | 29 Country Report: Croatia
Country Reports are designed to keep our readers in the know. Our team gathers facts and fi gures on a country and lets you see, at a glance, all the information we consider to be important. In the fi rst of our reports, OPP looks at Croatia – a popular holiday destination with a turbulent history
East of Italy and the Adriatic Sea, it is bordered by Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the north, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the southeast, Serbia in the east, and Montenegro to the south. The lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro- Hungarian Empire until the close of World War I.
C
In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO.
Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in
“Life can be tough for the average citizen of Croatia, but it is a desirable country”
1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fi ghting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands, along with a majority of Croatia’s ethnic Serb population. In January 1992, the EC (now
SIZE Land usage Country Croatia USA France UK India China Size (km2) 56,594 9,629,091 643,801 243,610 3,287,263 Other 9,596,961
Permanent Crops
Arable
the EU), after strong pressure from Germany, recognised Croatia. This was followed three months later by US recognition and in May 1992 Croatia was admitted to the UN.
Under UN supervision, the last Serb- held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998. In April 2009, Croatia joined NATO; Croatia signed the EU Accession Treaty in December 2011 and ratifi ed the Treaty in January, 2012. Croatia will become a member after all 27 EU
members ratify the treaty, with a target date of July 2013.
Croatia is coming out of a rocky period that came to a head with a series of corruption and privatisation scandals in the late 90s.
Corruption has not vanished, but
the government is making progress in the investigation and prosecution of corrupt parties, which has had a reassuring effect on international investors. Life can be tough for the average
citizen of Croatia – unemployment is high at around 18% and getting higher (as this article was written, Zugbra, Croatia’s national rail service, announced the upcoming cuts of 2700 jobs by the end of the year). Furthermore, housing prices have been declining for years.
Despite this, Croatia is an interesting, culture-fi lled country and what many would consider a desirable place to own property, with warm summers and picturesque scenery.
roatia(Croatian: Hrvatska) is a country situated in the Balkans in Central Europe.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68