ZAGREB, CROATIA – It is cold in the whole world these days. Croatia is no exception. Temperatures are far below zero and there is no heating. To prove their power. The Russians are blackmailing Europe through Ukraine and Croatia’s Prime Minister Ivo Sanader gathered the entire collection of CEOs who, after a three-hour meeting and a 40-minute press conference, concluded that – there is no crisis in Croatia. 

Electric heaters and Sundays off

It is difficult, but the government will manage, reporters were told after a meeting at the government at which Sanader, as he himself stressed, harshly ordered his associates (Economy Minister Damir Polancec, HEP power company head Ivan Mravak and Plinacro gas company chief Branko Radosevic) to find gas because Croatia has gas in reserves for only three days (now even less). Gas restrictions for certain branches of the industry have been introduced and transferring to other means of heating was ordered. Such as light distillate oil. Perhaps this would not be a problem if the HEP, which provides heating for Zagreb and some other towns, had more than 40 days worth of the oil. And citizens read this in the newspapers, so they started buying electric heaters.

Luckily, the prime minister and co. told reporters this on Wednesday, so citizens had until Sunday to buy the heaters. Because as of the beginning of the year, all shopping centres and shops are closed on Sundays. Which is pretty evident in traffic. To be more concrete, a person cannot even get close to one of the most popular shopping centres in Zagreb, City Centre One, on Fridays and Saturdays, without waiting for at least half an hour in line. However, there is no waiting at the Antunovic Centre, but the problem there is that – there is no heating. Whichever you take it, it is not good.

But some employers have decided to exploit the situation. The global crisis, the gas shortage and non-working Sundays gave employers the opportunity to reduce their staff. Sometimes a person wonders if all this was intentionally planned to fire a large number of people, all under the guise of global crisis. The media have blown the global crisis to extreme proportions, so all branches of the economy are now ‘suffering’.

Milinovic catches a wild horse with a lasso 

And citizens of Croatia could also suffer. The Globus weekly and the Jutarnji list daily, which are published by the EPH media company, opened the season of selecting the heir of President Stjepan Mesic. And they pulled a cat out of the hat – no more or less than Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) Ivo Josipovic, a renowned legal pundit and musician. Opposed to him, they put the Croatian Democratic Union’s (HDZ), also legal expert, Minister Ivan Simonovic. Apart from them being relatively unknown to the people, it would be difficult to imagine their debate. Everybody would attentively watch it for maybe the first ten to 15 minutes. A re-run of that Big Brother that took place in Thailand would be more interesting.

Or perhaps a live footage of Minister Darko Milinovic riding a horse on some prairie and catching a wild horse with a lasso. After he was photographed for the 24 sata daily in a cowboy suit, which many though was a photo montage (and with reason too, because what minister would allow himself to do that) and after he admitted to stealing hats when he was a boy, his healthcare reform is not at all surprising. There is no mercy for the Indians (i.e. citizens). Who wants medicine has to pay for it. Who does not want to pay for it, must pay for bonus insurance. All in all, a lot of payments for a social state in which the government and Sanader swear by. And the real bill will come up by the end of the year. Until then…