CERCLE DIPLOMATIQUE - issue 04/2019

LE MONDE CROATIA
Hvar is a popular Croatian
holiday island in the
Adriatic Sea.
FACTS &
FIGURES
With more than 800,000
inhabitants, the capital
Zagreb is the largest city
in Croatia.
PHOTOS: ADOBE STOCK
Croatia is shaped like a horseshoe, stretching
from Vukovar in the northeast, past Zagreb
in the west, and to Dubrovnik in the far
south. It gained most of its present-day contours at
the end of the 17th century. With a surface area of
56,594 square kilometres, it is 19th among the European
Union countries according to size, falling between
Latvia and Slovakia. Croatia declared its independence
on 25 June 1991. In the period thereafter,
the country sought accession to the European Union.
On 9 December 2011, the road to the EU was paved
with the signing of the Accession Treaty at the European
Council in Brussels. On 22 January 2012, the
Croatian Parliament decided to hold a referendum
on the EU accession in which two thirds of the population
gave their consent. On the 1st of July 2013, the
time had finally come. Croatia became the youngest
member of the European family in the seventh round
of enlargement.
In the first half of 2020, Croatia will take over the
EU Presidency for the first time. Gordan Grlić Radman,
Croatian Minister of Foreign and European
Affairs: „The main goal of the Croatian Presidency is
to act as an honest broker among the Member States
and to work hard on achieving consensus on the key
EU files.“
With a population of 4.3 million, Croatia ranks
21st in the European Union. About 60 percent of the
population live in urban centres, occupying less than
15 percent of the territory of the country. And of these,
one in four lives in the capital Zagreb. In terms of
nationality, Croats comprise 90 percent of the population.
The Roman Catholic Church is with a share of
86 percent the largest religious confession.
The good relationship between Croatia and Austria
dates back to the time of the Habsburg monarchy.
At the end of the 19th century, a trip to the "Austrian
Riviera" was a must for many aristocrats and celebrities.
The fact that relations between Croatia and Austria
are still very good can be seen every year at the
"Viennese Ball" held in Opatija at which Ambassadors,
Mayors of the twin cities and members of the
political and economic elite of the city of Vienna as
well as numerous entrepreneurs and public figures
from Opatija dance to the waltz rhythm.
Always part of central European and Mediterranean
cultural circles, or to be more precise, the meeting-point
of Western civilisation and the East, the
richness of Croatian culture testifies today to the
links, Croats have had with key European cultural
epochs. Among the visible traces of this are six monuments
in the UNESCO World Heritage List. In
2020, Rijeka will be one of two European Capitals of
Culture. For years, Croatia has been regarded as an
extremely popular holiday destination. One reason
for this is its location by the sea. The length of the
Adriatic coastline is 1,778 kilometres. Including the
Croatian islands, it is a total of 6,176 kilometers. To
Croatia belong altogether 1,246 islands of which
however only 47 are permanently inhabited. Franz
Lanschützer, Managing Partner of the Viennese investment
company EPIC, which has been involved in
the leading Croatian tourism company Valamar
since 2005, sums up how important tourism is for
the Croatian economy: “Croatia is the 25th destination
in the world by international arrivals. Tourism in
Croatia is growing at above-average rates if compared
to the Mediterranean and has a considerable impact
on the country's overall economy. 11.4 percent
of Croatia's total GDP is directly generated by tourism.
16.9 percent is tourism's direct and indirect
contribution to Croatia's gross value added, 23 percent
of all workers in Croatia are directly and indirectly
employed in tourism and eleven percent of all
investments in Croatia are generated by tourism.“
In 2017, 18.5 million people travelled to Croatia.
At that time, over 100 million overnight stays were
recorded for the first time. A new record was set in
2018. The number of tourists rose to 19.7 million and
the number of overnight stays to 106 million. For the
first time in history, the revenues generated by tourism
exceeded the ten billion Euro mark. For comparison:
in 2006, tourism revenues were at 6.6 billion
Euro.
And the boom that has been going on for years is
unbroken, both in arrivals and overnight stays, with
annual growth rates of between five and ten percent.
Thanks to the high revenues, tourism is also the driver
of many investments in tourism infrastructure,
which are additionally strengthened by EU funding
programmes. Business is also good at Valamar Riviera.
Managing partner Lanschützer: “Valamar Riviera
is Croatia's leading tourism company, operating 36
hotels and resorts and 15 camping resorts in prime
destinations. Valamar hotels and resorts can welcome
around 58,000 guests daily. The company Valamar
is growing significantly while retaining the market
leading position in Croatia. Revenues in
2015 were around 172 million Euro. By 2018 we have
grown revenues to 273 million Euro.“
CROATIA
Official Name:
Republic of Croatia
Capital: Zagreb
Government: Croatia is a
parliamentary, representative
democratic republic.
Prime Minister Andrej
Plenković is the head of
government in a multi-party
system. Executive power is
exercised by the
Government and the
President of Croatia.
Area: 56,594 km²
(126th biggest country in
the world)
Population: 4.1 million
(2019)
Ethnic Groups: Croat
90.4%, Serb 4.4%, Other
4.4%
Currency: Kuna (HRK)
GDP: 381.8 billion Kuna
(2018)
GDP per person: 184,497
Kuna (2018)
Formation:
• Croatia declared its
independence on 25 June
1991.
• On 9 December 2011, the
Accession Treaty at the
European Council in
Brussels was signed.
• On 1st of July 2013, Croatia
became the youngest
member of the European
family in the seventh round
of enlargement.
Croatia covers 56,594
square kilometres.
Scenes from the Croatian capital Zagreb: Croatian National Theatre, Grič tunnel, public transport in the city centre (from left).
The city of Split lies on
the Dalmatian coast of
Croatia.
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