Eurofound's COVID-19 EU PolicyWatch collates information on the responses of government and social partners to the crisis, as well as gathering examples of company practices aimed at mitigating the social and economic impacts.
Factsheet for case HR-2019-26/885 – Updated – measures in Croatia
Country | Croatia , applies nationwide |
Time period | Temporary, 28 June 2019 – 31 March 2022 |
Type | Legislations or other statutory regulations |
Category |
Supporting businesses to stay afloat
– Deferral of payments or liabilities |
Author | Predrag Bejalovic (IJF) and Eurofound |
Case created | 19 June 2020 (updated 11 July 2020) |
The Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia introduced numerous anti-pandemic measures aimed at protecting the health and lives of citizens following the COVID-19 outbreak. These measures include, among other things, ban on holding all public events and gatherings, suspension of trade activities, suspension of all sports competitions, and so forth. As a result, advertising in electronic media has been significantly reduced, in particluar in televison. The decline in advertising revenue led to a significant reduction in the available financial resources of television broadcasters and significantly disrupted their economic activity. Therefore, television broadcasters experienced difficulties to meet payment obligations for transmission fee, based on existing contracts with the network and infrastructure operator i.e. the company Odašiljači i veze d.o.o.
The company Odašiljači i veze d.o.o. will reduce the amount of broadcasting fees for broadcasters (television publishers) who can prove that their economic activity has been disrupted for the period from 1 April 2020 until the day of switching to DVB-T2 (transition from terrestrial TV signal to the latest DVB-T2 standard), as follows:
Television broadcasters will pay a reduced amount of the monthly fee by paying 50% of the amount upon deadline, and the remaining 50% of the monthly fee by non-interest-free repayment in equal monthly installments, starting from the first month following the deadline and until 31 March 2022 at the latest.
Reduction of the amount of fees and installment payment do not apply to television broadcasters whose founders or holders of shares or stakes are the Republic of Croatia and/or local and regional self-government units, and/or the Center for Restructuring and Sales (Centar za restrukturiranje i prodaju - CERP), and/or legal entities on the basis of a special regulation which are financed mainly or entirely from the state budget or from the budgets of local and regional self-government units, or from public funds, as well as from their subsidiaries, regardless of the size of the share.
The following updates to this measure have been made after it came into effect.
17 June 2020 |
The Government on its meeting on 10 June, 2020 amended the words "regardless of the size of the share", with the words “if the number of their shares or stakes in television broadcasters bigger than 25%” (OG 69/20). |
Currently unknown.
Workers | Businesses | Citizens |
---|---|---|
Does not apply to workers |
Sector specific set of companies
|
Does not apply to citizens |
Actors | Funding |
---|---|
National government
Company / Companies |
No special funding required
|
Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:
Trade unions | Employers' organisations | |
---|---|---|
Role | No involvement as case not in social partner domain | No involvement as case not in social partner domain |
Form | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:
No involvement.
Due to the nature of the measure, social partners were not involved.
This case is sector-specific (only private sector)
Economic area | Sector (NACE level 2) |
---|---|
J - Information And Communication | J59 Motion picture, video and television programme production, sound recording and music publishing activities |
J60 Programming and broadcasting activities |
This case is not occupation-specific.
Citation
Eurofound (2020), Temporary assistance to television publishers with business problems caused by COVID-19 by reducing payments to companies, case HR-2019-26/885 (measures in Croatia), COVID-19 EU PolicyWatch, Dublin, http://eurofound.link/covid19eupolicywatch
Disclaimer: This information has not been subject to the full Eurofound evaluation, editorial and publication process. All information is preliminary and subject to change.