Croatia News - CroatiaPress.com

Zagreb, February 1 (CP) — The Finance Ministry is expecting as many submitted tax returns for 2007, as it had received in 2006, when more than 970,000 were submitted.

The amount of pre-paid tax is expected to be at a record high of about 1.6 billion kuna.

Annual tax returns can be submitted until February 29 with repayment of tax starting beginning of April.

Zagreb, February 1 (CP) — The Capadocia freight ship sailing under the flag of the Dutch Antilles has run aground early on Friday morning in the Rijeka port, hitting the outer side of the pier.

The ship has suffered some damage, but there have been no spillages. The six-strong Ukrainian crew are unhurt.

The ship was sailing from Sibenik towards Rijeka. The damage it suffered is still being assessed.

Zagreb, February 1 (CP) – The three basic food items’ prices are to be rolled back today to what they cost before a wave of price increases at the start of 2008.

Fresh milk, some types of bread and cooking oil prices will be cut following an agreement between large retail chains, the government and the price monitoring commission.

The prices of the items in question are to ease between eight and 12 percent, making a litre of oil now cost 12.99 kuna from 14.

Zagreb, February 1, (CP) — The Slovene Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel has said he was ready to meet the new Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Jandrokovic as soon as a suitable time is agreed to.

He said that one of the reasons for mounting unresloved issues between the two countries was the fact that last year there had been no meetings on the level of foreign ministers.

Zagreb, January 31 (CP) — President Stjepan Mesic has said that if Slovenia continues to slam Croatia regarding the Protected Ecology and Fisheries Belt and Croatia is prevented from entering the EU because of this, that would be the end of the Croatian-Slovene friendship as we know it.

Mesic said this prior to a meeting in the Slovene town of Cernomelj with his Slovene counterpart Danilo Tuerk on Friday.

Zagreb, January 31, (CP) – The head of the European Delegation mission in Croatia, Vincent Degert has warned president Stjepan Mesic of the possibility of Croatia’s EU accession negotiations being frozen due to problems like Croatia’s implementation of the Protected Ecology and Fisheries Belt in the Adriatic against EU countries Italy and Slovenia.

Degert also mentioned the reforms of the justice system and public administration not being quick enough as other elements slowing down the negotiations.

Mesic said that the unresolved border issue with Slovenia was at the stem of all the problems.

Croatia still needs to open another 17 chapters and close 31 in accession negotiations with the EU and the current European Commission mandate expires in October of next year.

agreb, January 31 (CP) –The Belupo pharmaceuticals has purchased a majority share in the Farmavita company from Sarajevo. This will enable the increase of the number of registered medicines, better supply of medicines on the market, which will help end consumers.

agreb, January 31 (CP) – European Parliament  MPs Social-Democrat Club deputy president MPs and Croatia rapporteur, Austrian Hannes Swoboda has said that he thinks Croatia should at least in part take back its decisions regarding the Protected Ecology and Fisheries Belt (ZERP) and give responses to Slovenes on unresolved issues.

He said there existed a danger of EU accession talks being stalled in Croatia’s case and also warned Slovenia of watching its conduct. He said that the relations of the two countries should not be brought under strain due to the problem.

Zagreb, January 30 (CP) – President Stjepan Mesic will be meeting with his Slovene opposite number Danilo Tuerk on Friday in the Slovene town of Crnomelj.

This will be the first meeting of the two presidents’ since Tuerk assumed office in November 2007. The meeting is said to be of an unofficial nature, but the two are expected to discuss an array of unresolved issues with a special emphasis on the Protected Ecology and Fisheries Belt (ZERP) that Croatia had implemented as of January 1, 2008 and Italy and Slovenia had implemented earlier.

The relations between Croatia and Slovenia have been strained of late due to Croatia implementing its Protected Ecology and Fisheries Belt in the Adriatic which prevents EU members fishing within it, which they had been doing up until now and in that way depleting the Belt of fish more rapidly due to their high tech fishing fleets.

Zagreb, January 31 (CP) – The Zadar police have arrested a suspect in the brutal killing of a taxi driver in Korlat near Benkovac.

The detained suspect is a youth in his 20’s and allegedly has a speech impediment, which helped in his identification.

The taxi driver Igor Custic’s body was found burned in his car, which was set alight. It has been established that on Tuesday evening he had taken two passengers just before midnight.

Unofficial reports have it that the youth, Elvis Sopic, 17, had admitted to killing Custic with a shotgun, but the motif still remains unclear. 

More information is expected at a police news conference to be held later this afternoon.