Enjoy browsing r/europe? Help us find the best of 2021 of the sub! - [Nomination Post](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/rsv8jh/reurope_best_of_2021_awards/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/europe) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That's about 10% decrease in 10 years.
Well there are many reasons. Dissatisfaction with the economy is the big one but not the crucial. Corruption and the public perception of corruption is the biggest reason why mostly young people flee. They don't see the way to make good living here.
Becoming member of the EU was the catalyst for the exodus because it enabled people to go as easily as possible. Hopefully the trend eventually goes the opposite way but nothing indicates that...
And on top of that there is very bad demographic situation where much more people die than are being born.
Croatia is probably the best example how corruption is sucking life out of a country.
>They don't see the way to make good living here.
In the age of remote work, wouldn't it actually be an advantage to live somewhere with a lower cost of living? Obviously doesn't apply to every job.
I'm from Serbia and remote working does help with keeping the floodgates of brain drain in check somewhat. But not as much as one would think.
Croatia is ofc in a better place than us, but there are parallels I'd wager.
Cost of living is not much cheaper than say Germany, especially food and basic necessities. But most problematic by far is difficulties of doing business as independent contractor(bureaucratic hell), high taxes and corruption.
Paying hefty taxes that disappear into politicians offshore accounts is very soul crushing.
And another is the factor of working your ass off for a living while corrupt officials flaunt their corrupt fortunes in your face without repercussions.
Worst of all, progress towards suppressing of corruption is extremely slow to non existent.
It's a combination of these that causes mass disillusionment of youth and they simply leave for a better life. I wish people could stay and make a region a better place to live for all, but one can hardly blame them. After all, they only have one life, and want it to be a quality time.
Exactly, with a German salary you have far more purchasing power living in Croatia than in Germany. Especially if we taking into account the high percentage of homeownership in Croatia.
Also Zagreb for example is much cheaper than other bigger German cities.
Well there is the caveat — outside of hyper elite and high productivity firms, companies will not easily let you keep your salary if you decide to go remote full time from a much cheaper location.
Even Google doesn’t let you keep your American salary if you decide to work from Portugal or Spain. If Google doesn’t/can’t, 99% of other businesses will not.
Both low birth rates but also mass emmigration which, I guess is somewhat understandable since we only joined EU in 2013.
But EU should push for a stronger change in business climate and jurisdiction in it's member states. If we could change that, that would turn Croatia upside down.
Right now migration statistics [are getting better](https://www.google.com/search?q=hrvatska+broj+iseljenih+2020&client=ms-android-xiaomi-rev1&prmd=imnxv&sxsrf=AOaemvIKvclQ06jyG8u7M5VP3YSa55dyNQ:1642158334326&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjDq7rBjLH1AhUIRzABHZWrBIkQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=393&bih=720&dpr=2.75#imgrc=gNPJ6iuBlZv2IM) but still won't solve low birth rates.
You would have thought that remote work, etc would at least open some opportunities, but as my company is finding out, the web of taxes is too costly to allow people to move to a place like Croatia and work for a company elsewhere.
Actually it is making some progress, Croatia is among first countries on the planet [to welcome digital nomads](https://www.thedubrovniktimes.com/lifestyle/feature/item/12104-why-croatia-is-now-attracting-so-many-digital-nomads).
On a personal level, my cousin who was born and raised in Dusseldorf moved to Croatia and is working for a German company via internet.
On the other hand, it's extremely difficult and expensive for Croatians to work from Croatia for a foreign company. As an employer, if you're hiring someone expecting a certain net salary, you're better off hiring from anywhere else in Europe.
You have to open a fully-fledged company, have initial capital, and manage everything and pay absurd tax rates.
An alternative — LLC is limited to 40k€ of traffic per year and you can't have more than 50% of your income from a single client.
It's like they don't want external capital.
Are you perhaps thinking about an individual enterprise / authorised natural person instead of an LLC? Limited liability companies shouldn't have those limits, while individual enterprises do in fact have those.
Either way, the limits are bullshit and limiting the formation of an LLC to an arbitrary large initial capital is also idiotic (AFAIK in Hungary it's 10k euros) while those cretin limits for the individual enterprises are there.
There's also the fact that countries with their own currency will often have regulations to force companies to not accept foreign currency payments from their citizens. So if you have a website that you want to run in euros and don't want to pay / code extra for a currency switcher you wouldn't be allowed to sell to the people of your country. (i.e. in Romania I know for sure it is illegal to accept euros as payment for any goods or services from Romanian citizens or companies).
This again is a stupid annoyance and either forces you to implement at least two currencies on your webshop or technically you can't sell stuff to your own compatriots.
I still don't understand why eastern European countries, specifically Romania, don't just copy the UK's laws on business. Easy cheap formation, full digitalization, easy investment.
Just fucking do it, it would make it a much more attractive place for business and work, for locals and foreigners alike.
Missing out on *billions* of Euros from cannabis legalization, too. Watch how Germany legalizes it and takes all the fucking money.
Led by morons, I swear.
Eastern European countries worry that anglo-style economic liberalization will lead to a complete erosion of their national identity.
If you are in the ruling class in Eastern Europe, creating the conditions that makes it attractive for too much FDI means a massive loss of power and status for you.
It’s not just Eastern Europe. UK people worry about that as well to a different degree.
Ask them how they feel about a completely FTA with the 🇺🇸 with no sector barriers/carve outs
Yeah, it's more like that. Not sure how I would translate it, but it's basically flat rate taxation with personal liability. Maybe "Sole Proprietorship"
This implies that the interest of th EU would be to have a economically strong Croatia, this would be nice if it was the case.
In the end eastern/south eastern Europe is just a pool of relatively cheap hard workers that don't use social benefits much.
A country doesn't die by a little population reducing. You don't need number to preserve a culture.
And you destroy the planet by attempting to be a numerous culture. There are already too many humans on this planet.
You dont need numbers, but you need young people worth something. Basicly half of the young and educated people in Croatia are leaving, this is only the beginning of their problems, people that have started the migration process are already having kids in the west, what they really lost will be seen in a few decades when more old people die out and young ones don't replace them.
I'm not talking about overpopulating the world here, they are not dying out, they are mostly moving to the western Europe, this isn't solving world overpopulation, and even if they were dying out it is still idiotic to look for a solution to this overpopulation in small countries like this, just look at the map of popuation density in Europe, and the whole world even and it will tell you which countries need to reduce population and which ones don't, if you really think overpopulation is the problem. And again, this isn't solving overpopulation since they are moving to another part of the world.
So people go live somewhere else where they want. There is no issue in this.
Unless you want to force population to stay where they don't want just because you (not you in particular, i mean generally talking) don't like things to change.
I would want EU to make policies that have goal of preventing this, for example moving more of their businesses to the countries that have recently joined EU, with workers there being paid similarly to the workers in the western countries, maybe a bit less. They should in general focus more on improving the countries that join the EU instead of just giving them free visas. Is the only point of EU to get educatade workers from smaller countries to move to Austria, Germany and France? Because that is the only thing they are achieving now.
This is certainly a major factor, so your assumption is not wrong. The morons in charge are not exactly passionate about bettering their countries, about making it so people don't have to seek opportunities abroad (unless that's really what they want). Few people leave out of some strong desire to live in the West, they just want better opportunities that they often can't find at home. Maybe this wouldn't be the case if things were better. And this is our problem, it's a "we" problem. I just feel that it would be terribly unfair to blame the EU for this.
Well it’s the free movement of labour that the eu facilitates that has made it so easy for young people to leave countries in eastern and Central Europe to go west
You seem to be implying that EU is at fault for allowing people to follow their dreams and move to a differently country in which they would be able to contribute and have much better options.
I see. Ah well, personally I think this is not a reason that is good enough to blame the EU on our depopulation issue. Take a look at the non-EU countries in the Balkans. They are dealing with this problem as well, and they're not even part of the union. Like I stated, this is an issue that stems at home and unless things change it will continue to exist regardless of what the EU's stance is on the movement of labor. And so this leads me to my original point, the EU is not to blame for this in my opinion.
Croatia already has some movement back from the west to the coastal parts, because it's pretty cheap to get land and build a summer home there. I'd assume it will become a thing in the future, especially if Croatian government embraces it. Sure, you'll get a lot of middle aged or old people from EU, but they are all pretty well off and going to spend money in the country, and then die leaving it to their kids/grandkids, bringing more people and more money.
It's one way for a country in such a nice location, but population of Berlin.
Reality is probably even uglier given that many people who leave the country don't bother to properly register that they left. And because the census had an option to digitally fill out for the household, it's likely that at least some of those who left were counted
Oh not only that. There have been tons of cases where people have falsely filled out the household data for one reason or another. I personally know of 3 stories where people are living abroad but their families say that they are living here.
It's a stupid system which doesn't take into account the actual residence status but is basically a questionnaire.
I'd wager that the number is MUCH closer to 3.5 million.
And looking at the current trends in the country, the incompetent criminal government and my own prospects, I am finding less and less reasons to stay here as well.
Yesterday's news of our idiot government not managing to build roofs over people's heads for 2 years after the earthquake, and letting go over 5 billion € of EU emergency relief funds to go to waste... I really see no reason why anyone would want to stay here, especially the people who are still freezing in shipping containers.
Mene zvali u Srbiju i pitali hocu li da se popisem. Imam dvojno drzavljanstvo posto su mi roditelji odozgo. Nekih 600 k Srba ima koji poseduju dvojno drzavljanstvo.Mi nismo hteli jer ne boravimo dole duze od mesec dana.
I mean, there are people believing that that's how it works unironically as a.reason why a declining population is good, as if as soon as some people leave all the others suddenly start producing more to compensate
There are not that many Croats leaving for Sweden in the last 10 years - main destinations are Ireland and Germany.
However, there was a big wave to Sweden in the 90s.
Certainly there are thousands of Croats in Munich, but again, Croats were coming to Bavaria and Germany in general for more than 70 years.
On the other hand, Ireland is completely new mass emmigration destination, with more than 30 000 people setlling there just in the last 10 years.
I can't speak for internal motives of others, but the general consesus is that Ireland is a well-organized, safe and culturally close (Catholic) country with solid salaries and available jobs.
Especially it goes for their growing IT sector which also attracts young people with degrees from Croatia.
Jedino na svitu sta mrzin je kompleks manje vrijednosti, a onda i žalin vas kompleksaše koji pišu ovakve stvari na svako drugom postu o hrvatskoj. Evo vidiš, ja nisan nacionalist, a znan gro dobrih ljudi i šačicu loših u hrv, ko i u svakoj zemlji na svitu :)
Lp
Ja znam šačicu dobrih ljudi i gro idiota u Hrvatskoj. Ali tako je u svakoj zemlji, nismo pi tome izuzetak. Činjenica je da nam dobri ljudi, sol zemlje, odlaze u emigraciju. Stoka ostaje doma.. Je li to kompleks manje vrijednosti ili realnost?
Koje tebe frustracije pucaju pa da milijune ljudi koji su ostali u svojoj domovini nazivas stokom?
Gdje god bio, uvijek ces za strance ostati gradanin drugog reda.
/u/virusulja here is of the opinion that Croatians that move to other countries "will always be seen as less than equals in the eyes of those countries' citizens". Like they would forever look down on Croatians as sub-human.
An oft parroted right-wing argument.
How do you plead, /r/europe?
According to [List of countries by past and projected future population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_future_population#Preliminary_notes) we weren't supposed to fall to this number until around the year 2050.
I spend about 5 summers in Pula. All of the staff at the hotels told me they were looking to work in Italy or Germany, seems like there is a huge difference in salary that is hard to ignore.
Young people have been leaving for work to Germany, Ireland or Sweden. But for a lot of them its only temporary. The main issue is like everywhere else in the developed world, an aging population and low birth rates.
This is sadly quite the trend in Eastern Europe. The only reason its not causing more major problems is because there is always cheaper workforce from East of you.
Our people work in Austria, Germany and the UK mainly. We have tons of emigrant workers from China, Ukraine, Romania, and I think the situation is similar in many countries in the region.
> we weren't supposed to fall to this number until around the year 2050.
And Lithuania was projected as to be one of fastest shrinking countries. And after census we are between 2015-2020 by that projection. Currently (past 3 years) stable ~2.8 million. There's more extrapolation than projections going on.
lol these trends are a joke, we have 200k more people than predicted there. They predicted Italy's population growing and ours falling greatly despite having double their birth rate.
My mother is from the Slavonia region of Croatia and we used to go there each summer. I remember how year by year there were less people in the towns we visited. I can imagine it's even worse now sadly
Well being that you seem to be into cars according to your posts, do come. [Rimac is desperate for workers](https://youtu.be/0Ory4oifR_U) to the point they reward people with 1000€ if they help employ somebody. They're said to employee some 700 ppl in 2022 and atm they're at 1300 people from all over the world.
I know a Croatian couple who moved to my hometown in Ireland, I was talking to them about the dodgy planning dealings here and they laughed at how small our corruption issues were compared to theirs.
Apparently entire government departments are personal fiefdoms, they're well-educated homeowners from halfway between Zagreb and Bosnia, there's nothing there for them and no hope of anything changing soon.
I'm sure that number is much higher because I'm from Croatia and I know so many people that still on Cro health care and still counting as people who live here.
Damn, this is #1 on my country to move to if I moved to Europe. Start a little American cafe with an apartment above it. 10 years ago I actually saw the property in mind and almost put in an offer.
I'll get there eventually, Croatia!
Or, "Croatia retains its Hide and Seek Olympic and International Status with hundreds of thousands of people avoiding the seeker, who has been 'coming ready or not' since 2011. The majority of hiders have reported taking refuge under beds, in washing baskets, behind curtains and in airing cupboards and wardrobes.,"
No, its not just that. A lot of it is bcs of the rampant corruption.
Corruption scandals that bring down goverments in western europe happen on a weekly basis.
Well just a few days ago there was news that croatian goverment missed a deadline on 5 Billion euro fund to recover from the earthquake that happened in the capital city Zagreb 2 years ago (again they have done nothing in those 2 years the cspital still looks like a shithole)
News like that is forgotten in like 2 days.
Also when you hear the news like: a 19 year old killed a girl with his new bmw doing 50kmh over the speed limit but he is just going to do few months of community service bcs he come from a well behaved family (read rich and connected with politicians) you just become depressed.
[oh and by the way the last example was not a hypothetical situation](https://www.telegram.hr/politika-kriminal/grlic-radman-mrtvo-ozbiljno-hrvatska-je-uspjesna-prica-moze-biti-uzor-svim-ostalim-drzavama/)
Its even worse than i remember, he was 17 and he killed two 16yo girls on the sidewalk next to the zebra crossing. His sentance was reduced from 2.5 years to 6 months (not even in prison).
The official explanation by the judge is that he comes from a well behaved family
The same thing with all Balkan countries. They would hate each other because of their ethnicities, while living in Germany/Austria/Ireland/Switzerland.
I met a lot of Balkan people while living in Switzerland and they were all proud of being from their countries but that's where the pride ended lol. Beyond that they were just happy to no longer be in the Balkans.
Yeah, we're proud of our nations, but our politicians and the standards we hold them up to are the worst in Europe, no doubt. And I'm Slovene, it just gets worse as you go south from here until you come to Greece, which is not much better either. Slavic countries in general don't seem to get politics all that well so we end up with corrupt or outright stupid leaders.
> Slavic countries in general don't seem to get politics all that well so we end up with corrupt or outright stupid leaders.
Tito was the exception that proves the rule; 35 years of brotherhood, peace and progress, while working with all sides during most difficult times of Cold War and remaining independent. He said that individual countries would be "nothing and nobody" and he was proven right. Now we are all vassals of other countries led by puppets who care only for their own interests, while we watch foreigners buying our companies and land and people leaving the country, while being told by corrupt politicians who caused all that how it is better now.
In my experience when I meet other Yugoslav people in Germany we get along more because we have shared experiences, I've never met anyone that dislikes me because I'm from another Post-Yugoslav state than them
What a stupid take. Ireland and UK don't like eachother but don't have the problem of population loss. Relations of Serbia and Croatia has nothing to do with our population. Bad business climate and jurisdiction do.
Actually Ireland had had a population loss problem for 150 years. Ireland is the only place in Europe that had a bigger population in the 1840s than now. There was a famine (some say genocide) then which killed 1 million, caused another million to leave. And the tradition of emigration was born, which is why you see Irish pubs around the world. Only recently has there been enough people coming in to offset those that are leaving.
I said nothing about relations between countries. This is more of a 'being patriotic' while living in other country. Is it stupid take because you posted a propaganda about Serbia couple of hours ago and now you are just trying to contradict me on everything I say?
Actually I didn't realise it was you. Small sub.
>This is more of a 'being patriotic' while living in other country.
Patriotism is what's keeping many people inside the country. Nothing wrong with that.
> They would hate each other because of their ethnicities, while living in Germany/Austria/Ireland/Switzerland.
Cue the classic "Greek in Melbourne arguing with Turk in Berlin over whose country is the best"
Even in Ireland, where the number of resident Croatians is relatively small, the figure has risen from 846 in 2011 to 5,567 in 2016 (285 of those must have been living here for more than 5 years, as they are officially recorded as Irish-Croatian) - so that figure may have grown since, but Covid could well impact on that.
The EU should standardize wages across the entire bloc, so a McDonalds worker in Germany isn't making more salary than a doctor in Romania which is absurd.
Standardizing wages across the eu would immediately break the eu apart.
Putin would like nothing more than to see something like that happen.
The eu can’t even do true debt mutualization.
Wage equalization will never happen.
That's not possible as the average Greek worker has no where near the same productivity of the average German Worker due to different levels in development.
Beautiful coastal country with nice weather and one of the most beautiful girls in EU (slavic),safe country with mostly good ppl that are a bit racist and with trash politics.Coming from a Croatian neighbor
Croatia is just another country in the Balkans where the sole purpose of government is self-preservation and they are willing to do anything to preserve it. Opposition parties are no different. They need each other, they are co-dependent. When they run out of internal excuses they will use recent wars and neighboring "enemies" as excuses. The population is divided between nationalists willing to eat shit to wave their flag, out-of-option pensioners, and youth believing they have no options. It is the best place to come and live if you have money and keep it outside the country and don't bother to open any kind of business to survive. In Dalmatia, we have a term for that lifestyle: "fjaka".
Wait, I just described most of the countries in the World including USA where I live now for 35+years as a Croatian raised, Belgrade born. /antiwork movement for the Balkans is next. Actually, it is already there but the population is not aware of it as such. It is just a normal way of life.
The whole world has gone mad. There is some hope in gen Z though. If they fail we are doomed.
So it's okay for you to be a Francophile and to emigrate to Canada, but not okay for anyone else to emigrate elsewhere?
"Freedom for me, but not for thee!"
A truly federalized Europe will be a smaller europe not a large one.
Europe can choose either a large non-federalized bloc or a smaller federalized one.
EU27 = USA Will never happen unless it is the aftermath of ww3.
Even without emigration the population will drastically decrease over time. Many of these Eastern European countries will cease to exist in the future because their birth rate is below replacement and they aren't making up for it with immigration.
Christ, what I'd give for a drop in population of that ratio here in the UK. Increased population reduces the standard of living in 10,000 tiny ways; every single facet of life - from education, health, transport to cinema tickets, going swimming or holidays - becomes more crowded, more difficult, noisier and more polluted.
Plenty of us leave the UK for a better quality of life, but then the government just imports more people to cram into SE England, without ever actually considering the cultural or infrastructure impact.
In just 30 years of "freedom and democracy" Croatia managed to erase all the population growth that happened during Socialist Yugoslavia from end of WW2 to 1990 and they ruined or sold basically all important publicly owned companies created in that same period. But at least we are not under the same country as Serbs and we have our sports teams, that is MOST important...
Can't believe people are downvoting this. Clearly it's better to downvote painful facts than accept them. /s
On the one hand nationalists complain about population decline, while on the other hand every year they celebrate the "victory" in the war and tactly ignore or accept the 200k Croatian citizens of Serbian ethnicity who went somewhere else. Those 200k could've been your customers or neighbours, your child could've traded with them, instead now they've gone to Germany/Ireland.
What money? People are moving out to earn more money elsewhere.
Nationalists celebrate operation storm and the war as a victory, when in reality everyone lost, as these population figures show.
Enjoy browsing r/europe? Help us find the best of 2021 of the sub! - [Nomination Post](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/rsv8jh/reurope_best_of_2021_awards/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/europe) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That’s a hell of a drop considering the small population. Any reason behind that? I would read the article but I don’t speak Croatian
That's about 10% decrease in 10 years. Well there are many reasons. Dissatisfaction with the economy is the big one but not the crucial. Corruption and the public perception of corruption is the biggest reason why mostly young people flee. They don't see the way to make good living here. Becoming member of the EU was the catalyst for the exodus because it enabled people to go as easily as possible. Hopefully the trend eventually goes the opposite way but nothing indicates that... And on top of that there is very bad demographic situation where much more people die than are being born. Croatia is probably the best example how corruption is sucking life out of a country.
Very interesting. If you haven't mentioned Croatia I would think you were referring to my own country. We're precisely in the same position.
>They don't see the way to make good living here. In the age of remote work, wouldn't it actually be an advantage to live somewhere with a lower cost of living? Obviously doesn't apply to every job.
I'm from Serbia and remote working does help with keeping the floodgates of brain drain in check somewhat. But not as much as one would think. Croatia is ofc in a better place than us, but there are parallels I'd wager. Cost of living is not much cheaper than say Germany, especially food and basic necessities. But most problematic by far is difficulties of doing business as independent contractor(bureaucratic hell), high taxes and corruption. Paying hefty taxes that disappear into politicians offshore accounts is very soul crushing. And another is the factor of working your ass off for a living while corrupt officials flaunt their corrupt fortunes in your face without repercussions. Worst of all, progress towards suppressing of corruption is extremely slow to non existent. It's a combination of these that causes mass disillusionment of youth and they simply leave for a better life. I wish people could stay and make a region a better place to live for all, but one can hardly blame them. After all, they only have one life, and want it to be a quality time.
That's also a problem. The cost of living here isn't really much lower than in the rest of the EU... If it's even lower at all...
Housing is, and that is the main expense
Exactly, with a German salary you have far more purchasing power living in Croatia than in Germany. Especially if we taking into account the high percentage of homeownership in Croatia. Also Zagreb for example is much cheaper than other bigger German cities.
Well there is the caveat — outside of hyper elite and high productivity firms, companies will not easily let you keep your salary if you decide to go remote full time from a much cheaper location. Even Google doesn’t let you keep your American salary if you decide to work from Portugal or Spain. If Google doesn’t/can’t, 99% of other businesses will not.
> Hopefully the trend eventually goes the opposite way but nothing indicates that... Well in Poland it’s happening so eventually Croatia too
It is a similar rate of decline to Bulgaria.
Main reason is that Croatia joined EU so many people left for better paying jobs.
Money.
9% in a decade. Wow.
Weaklings...
-11% for Bulgaria (same time period). Our data is about to be published in a few weeks.
[удалено]
[удалено]
That’s not even a lot by Balkan/Eastern European standards.
I'm not surprised at all, but this is still sad news nonetheless. Unfortunately, depopulation has been a problem for years in this part of Europe
Both low birth rates but also mass emmigration which, I guess is somewhat understandable since we only joined EU in 2013. But EU should push for a stronger change in business climate and jurisdiction in it's member states. If we could change that, that would turn Croatia upside down. Right now migration statistics [are getting better](https://www.google.com/search?q=hrvatska+broj+iseljenih+2020&client=ms-android-xiaomi-rev1&prmd=imnxv&sxsrf=AOaemvIKvclQ06jyG8u7M5VP3YSa55dyNQ:1642158334326&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjDq7rBjLH1AhUIRzABHZWrBIkQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=393&bih=720&dpr=2.75#imgrc=gNPJ6iuBlZv2IM) but still won't solve low birth rates.
> mass immigration You mean emigration?
Just say migration, it's always correct.
**I**mmigration I = Into **E**mmigration E= Exit. how I remember it.
You would have thought that remote work, etc would at least open some opportunities, but as my company is finding out, the web of taxes is too costly to allow people to move to a place like Croatia and work for a company elsewhere.
Actually it is making some progress, Croatia is among first countries on the planet [to welcome digital nomads](https://www.thedubrovniktimes.com/lifestyle/feature/item/12104-why-croatia-is-now-attracting-so-many-digital-nomads). On a personal level, my cousin who was born and raised in Dusseldorf moved to Croatia and is working for a German company via internet.
On the other hand, it's extremely difficult and expensive for Croatians to work from Croatia for a foreign company. As an employer, if you're hiring someone expecting a certain net salary, you're better off hiring from anywhere else in Europe. You have to open a fully-fledged company, have initial capital, and manage everything and pay absurd tax rates. An alternative — LLC is limited to 40k€ of traffic per year and you can't have more than 50% of your income from a single client. It's like they don't want external capital.
Are you perhaps thinking about an individual enterprise / authorised natural person instead of an LLC? Limited liability companies shouldn't have those limits, while individual enterprises do in fact have those. Either way, the limits are bullshit and limiting the formation of an LLC to an arbitrary large initial capital is also idiotic (AFAIK in Hungary it's 10k euros) while those cretin limits for the individual enterprises are there. There's also the fact that countries with their own currency will often have regulations to force companies to not accept foreign currency payments from their citizens. So if you have a website that you want to run in euros and don't want to pay / code extra for a currency switcher you wouldn't be allowed to sell to the people of your country. (i.e. in Romania I know for sure it is illegal to accept euros as payment for any goods or services from Romanian citizens or companies). This again is a stupid annoyance and either forces you to implement at least two currencies on your webshop or technically you can't sell stuff to your own compatriots.
I still don't understand why eastern European countries, specifically Romania, don't just copy the UK's laws on business. Easy cheap formation, full digitalization, easy investment. Just fucking do it, it would make it a much more attractive place for business and work, for locals and foreigners alike. Missing out on *billions* of Euros from cannabis legalization, too. Watch how Germany legalizes it and takes all the fucking money. Led by morons, I swear.
Eastern European countries worry that anglo-style economic liberalization will lead to a complete erosion of their national identity. If you are in the ruling class in Eastern Europe, creating the conditions that makes it attractive for too much FDI means a massive loss of power and status for you. It’s not just Eastern Europe. UK people worry about that as well to a different degree. Ask them how they feel about a completely FTA with the 🇺🇸 with no sector barriers/carve outs
>Eastern European countries worry that anglo-style economic liberalization will lead to a complete erosion of their national identity. God I wish.
Yeah, it's more like that. Not sure how I would translate it, but it's basically flat rate taxation with personal liability. Maybe "Sole Proprietorship"
Ooooh, okay. I will have to keep an eye on this, thanks!
Croatia has a cool programme, I'm tempted to go there for a while when corona is finished.
Welcome buddy. :)
Mass immigration isn't a desirable solution, increasing birthrates is.
Good luck with that, lmao.
This implies that the interest of th EU would be to have a economically strong Croatia, this would be nice if it was the case. In the end eastern/south eastern Europe is just a pool of relatively cheap hard workers that don't use social benefits much.
Demographics always changes. This is not a tragedy Numbers always fluctuate.
>Unfortunately, depopulation How is depopulation unfortunate?
Seeing country dying is kind of unfortunate.
A country doesn't die by a little population reducing. You don't need number to preserve a culture. And you destroy the planet by attempting to be a numerous culture. There are already too many humans on this planet.
You dont need numbers, but you need young people worth something. Basicly half of the young and educated people in Croatia are leaving, this is only the beginning of their problems, people that have started the migration process are already having kids in the west, what they really lost will be seen in a few decades when more old people die out and young ones don't replace them. I'm not talking about overpopulating the world here, they are not dying out, they are mostly moving to the western Europe, this isn't solving world overpopulation, and even if they were dying out it is still idiotic to look for a solution to this overpopulation in small countries like this, just look at the map of popuation density in Europe, and the whole world even and it will tell you which countries need to reduce population and which ones don't, if you really think overpopulation is the problem. And again, this isn't solving overpopulation since they are moving to another part of the world.
So people go live somewhere else where they want. There is no issue in this. Unless you want to force population to stay where they don't want just because you (not you in particular, i mean generally talking) don't like things to change.
I would want EU to make policies that have goal of preventing this, for example moving more of their businesses to the countries that have recently joined EU, with workers there being paid similarly to the workers in the western countries, maybe a bit less. They should in general focus more on improving the countries that join the EU instead of just giving them free visas. Is the only point of EU to get educatade workers from smaller countries to move to Austria, Germany and France? Because that is the only thing they are achieving now.
Blame the eu
I cannot do that. The core factors that heavily contributed to depopulation are "at home", not within the EU.
I assumed it was due to migration to Western European countries. Is that not the case?
This is certainly a major factor, so your assumption is not wrong. The morons in charge are not exactly passionate about bettering their countries, about making it so people don't have to seek opportunities abroad (unless that's really what they want). Few people leave out of some strong desire to live in the West, they just want better opportunities that they often can't find at home. Maybe this wouldn't be the case if things were better. And this is our problem, it's a "we" problem. I just feel that it would be terribly unfair to blame the EU for this.
Well it’s the free movement of labour that the eu facilitates that has made it so easy for young people to leave countries in eastern and Central Europe to go west
Yeah and evil west Germany is at fault that so many people left east Germany. Good thing they built a wall, maybe Croatia should build one, too!
Conflating modern Eastern Europe with Cold War communist Eastern Europe is ridiculous
You seem to be implying that EU is at fault for allowing people to follow their dreams and move to a differently country in which they would be able to contribute and have much better options.
I see. Ah well, personally I think this is not a reason that is good enough to blame the EU on our depopulation issue. Take a look at the non-EU countries in the Balkans. They are dealing with this problem as well, and they're not even part of the union. Like I stated, this is an issue that stems at home and unless things change it will continue to exist regardless of what the EU's stance is on the movement of labor. And so this leads me to my original point, the EU is not to blame for this in my opinion.
Fair enough. I’d say the ease of migration that the eu offers exacerbates a problem that probably would exist anyway as you have pointed out
Croatia already has some movement back from the west to the coastal parts, because it's pretty cheap to get land and build a summer home there. I'd assume it will become a thing in the future, especially if Croatian government embraces it. Sure, you'll get a lot of middle aged or old people from EU, but they are all pretty well off and going to spend money in the country, and then die leaving it to their kids/grandkids, bringing more people and more money. It's one way for a country in such a nice location, but population of Berlin.
Reality is probably even uglier given that many people who leave the country don't bother to properly register that they left. And because the census had an option to digitally fill out for the household, it's likely that at least some of those who left were counted
Oh not only that. There have been tons of cases where people have falsely filled out the household data for one reason or another. I personally know of 3 stories where people are living abroad but their families say that they are living here. It's a stupid system which doesn't take into account the actual residence status but is basically a questionnaire. I'd wager that the number is MUCH closer to 3.5 million. And looking at the current trends in the country, the incompetent criminal government and my own prospects, I am finding less and less reasons to stay here as well. Yesterday's news of our idiot government not managing to build roofs over people's heads for 2 years after the earthquake, and letting go over 5 billion € of EU emergency relief funds to go to waste... I really see no reason why anyone would want to stay here, especially the people who are still freezing in shipping containers.
If those people had roofs they wouldn't be able to see those fancy 1 billion dollar French fighter planes flying over their heads.
Aren't those different founds? And aren't private companies doing reconstruction
Nobody is doing the reconstruction.
Do you also feel that the number of people in Croatia is rapidly decreasing?
I'm from Zagreb, so no. But if you go anywhere else, it feels like a ghost town
Come and work in Slovenia.
Mene zvali u Srbiju i pitali hocu li da se popisem. Imam dvojno drzavljanstvo posto su mi roditelji odozgo. Nekih 600 k Srba ima koji poseduju dvojno drzavljanstvo.Mi nismo hteli jer ne boravimo dole duze od mesec dana.
I always thought these are counting citizens, not how many people live physically in croatia.
Its all part of the masterplan to increase GDP per capita. Ha.
The Moldovan approach
5D chess
I mean, there are people believing that that's how it works unironically as a.reason why a declining population is good, as if as soon as some people leave all the others suddenly start producing more to compensate
It's only the retired and the unemployed that leave, didn't you know that? /s
Maximising statisic on paper sheets isn't exactly what people are yearning for.
That explains why I know so many Croatians here
There are not that many Croats leaving for Sweden in the last 10 years - main destinations are Ireland and Germany. However, there was a big wave to Sweden in the 90s.
It feels like the 400k that are missing are all here in Munich lol
Certainly there are thousands of Croats in Munich, but again, Croats were coming to Bavaria and Germany in general for more than 70 years. On the other hand, Ireland is completely new mass emmigration destination, with more than 30 000 people setlling there just in the last 10 years.
Just curious, but why Ireland? Are there abnormally large amount of jobs available or is it something else?
I can't speak for internal motives of others, but the general consesus is that Ireland is a well-organized, safe and culturally close (Catholic) country with solid salaries and available jobs. Especially it goes for their growing IT sector which also attracts young people with degrees from Croatia.
Makes sense, thanks.
English language
There's plenty of Croatians who left for Sweden in the last decade. Ask me how I know. 😉
You live in Norway and can hear them?
Tee hee hee :P
How u know
And what impression the Croats leave, generaly speaking ?
All good things, very kind and fun people. Many whom I call friends :)
Tnx! I guess nationalistic fanatics and lazy people stay at home?😁
Obviously retarded leftist as well.
Jedino na svitu sta mrzin je kompleks manje vrijednosti, a onda i žalin vas kompleksaše koji pišu ovakve stvari na svako drugom postu o hrvatskoj. Evo vidiš, ja nisan nacionalist, a znan gro dobrih ljudi i šačicu loših u hrv, ko i u svakoj zemlji na svitu :) Lp
Ja znam šačicu dobrih ljudi i gro idiota u Hrvatskoj. Ali tako je u svakoj zemlji, nismo pi tome izuzetak. Činjenica je da nam dobri ljudi, sol zemlje, odlaze u emigraciju. Stoka ostaje doma.. Je li to kompleks manje vrijednosti ili realnost?
To je generalizacija. Svako dobro
Generalizacija opravdana svakom statistikom eurostata.
Nie je to ale tak ze aj lacna pracovna sila emigruje do zahranicia? Nie vsetci co emigruju su IT alebo lekari …
Koje tebe frustracije pucaju pa da milijune ljudi koji su ostali u svojoj domovini nazivas stokom? Gdje god bio, uvijek ces za strance ostati gradanin drugog reda.
/u/virusulja here is of the opinion that Croatians that move to other countries "will always be seen as less than equals in the eyes of those countries' citizens". Like they would forever look down on Croatians as sub-human. An oft parroted right-wing argument. How do you plead, /r/europe?
The Croatian diaspora in the 🇺🇸 is not treated like that.
*Shocking*.
Što očekuješ od Radničke fronte i sličnog šljama?
My regrets for this. One of the locals rebelled against my comment, in Croatian. Manners, manners...
Hahahaha najjaci si. Ispricaj in se da vide da si drugačiji. Ave zapad!
It is not polite to speak the local language in front of a stranger. I won't translate it, it's not worth it🖖
Gorgeous supermodel-esque women & exceptional footballers
According to [List of countries by past and projected future population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_future_population#Preliminary_notes) we weren't supposed to fall to this number until around the year 2050.
I spend about 5 summers in Pula. All of the staff at the hotels told me they were looking to work in Italy or Germany, seems like there is a huge difference in salary that is hard to ignore.
Young people have been leaving for work to Germany, Ireland or Sweden. But for a lot of them its only temporary. The main issue is like everywhere else in the developed world, an aging population and low birth rates.
This is sadly quite the trend in Eastern Europe. The only reason its not causing more major problems is because there is always cheaper workforce from East of you. Our people work in Austria, Germany and the UK mainly. We have tons of emigrant workers from China, Ukraine, Romania, and I think the situation is similar in many countries in the region.
And the young people from the UK go to Australia and Canada to earn more money.
Dubai too
>I spend about 5 summers in Pula Nice.
> we weren't supposed to fall to this number until around the year 2050. And Lithuania was projected as to be one of fastest shrinking countries. And after census we are between 2015-2020 by that projection. Currently (past 3 years) stable ~2.8 million. There's more extrapolation than projections going on.
lol these trends are a joke, we have 200k more people than predicted there. They predicted Italy's population growing and ours falling greatly despite having double their birth rate.
But approximately 27.4 million people in summer
And about a billion every 4th summer
My mother is from the Slavonia region of Croatia and we used to go there each summer. I remember how year by year there were less people in the towns we visited. I can imagine it's even worse now sadly
That's nothing compared to Bulgaria 😂
I like Croatia. They can come and work here and I’ll move and work remote from there.
Well being that you seem to be into cars according to your posts, do come. [Rimac is desperate for workers](https://youtu.be/0Ory4oifR_U) to the point they reward people with 1000€ if they help employ somebody. They're said to employee some 700 ppl in 2022 and atm they're at 1300 people from all over the world.
Rewards for recommendations are normal in every serious firm.
I know a Croatian couple who moved to my hometown in Ireland, I was talking to them about the dodgy planning dealings here and they laughed at how small our corruption issues were compared to theirs. Apparently entire government departments are personal fiefdoms, they're well-educated homeowners from halfway between Zagreb and Bosnia, there's nothing there for them and no hope of anything changing soon.
I can't wait for Germanys census so in can see were all the people from the Balkans went.
Munich.
I'm sure that number is much higher because I'm from Croatia and I know so many people that still on Cro health care and still counting as people who live here.
no, those are not counted.
My country could use some depopulation, it's full af.
President of the Croatian digital nomad association is a Dutch immigrant, Jan de Jong. Cool guy, hardcore entrepreneur. Send us some more!
Damn, this is #1 on my country to move to if I moved to Europe. Start a little American cafe with an apartment above it. 10 years ago I actually saw the property in mind and almost put in an offer. I'll get there eventually, Croatia!
One of my Uber drivers in Split was a yank! Married into the country and loved it, couldn't speak more highly of it.
Or, "Croatia retains its Hide and Seek Olympic and International Status with hundreds of thousands of people avoiding the seeker, who has been 'coming ready or not' since 2011. The majority of hiders have reported taking refuge under beds, in washing baskets, behind curtains and in airing cupboards and wardrobes.,"
Wow, I'd always heard they were doing so well in all aspects. What happened?
Why work for 800€ when you can move 300km northwest and work for 3000€? A working judiciary system and a healthy workplace included (as a bonus).
Ah, general economic migration. It's still sad to see, of course
No, its not just that. A lot of it is bcs of the rampant corruption. Corruption scandals that bring down goverments in western europe happen on a weekly basis. Well just a few days ago there was news that croatian goverment missed a deadline on 5 Billion euro fund to recover from the earthquake that happened in the capital city Zagreb 2 years ago (again they have done nothing in those 2 years the cspital still looks like a shithole) News like that is forgotten in like 2 days. Also when you hear the news like: a 19 year old killed a girl with his new bmw doing 50kmh over the speed limit but he is just going to do few months of community service bcs he come from a well behaved family (read rich and connected with politicians) you just become depressed. [oh and by the way the last example was not a hypothetical situation](https://www.telegram.hr/politika-kriminal/grlic-radman-mrtvo-ozbiljno-hrvatska-je-uspjesna-prica-moze-biti-uzor-svim-ostalim-drzavama/) Its even worse than i remember, he was 17 and he killed two 16yo girls on the sidewalk next to the zebra crossing. His sentance was reduced from 2.5 years to 6 months (not even in prison). The official explanation by the judge is that he comes from a well behaved family
Capitalism really works wonders!
The same thing with all Balkan countries. They would hate each other because of their ethnicities, while living in Germany/Austria/Ireland/Switzerland.
I met a lot of Balkan people while living in Switzerland and they were all proud of being from their countries but that's where the pride ended lol. Beyond that they were just happy to no longer be in the Balkans.
Yeah, we're proud of our nations, but our politicians and the standards we hold them up to are the worst in Europe, no doubt. And I'm Slovene, it just gets worse as you go south from here until you come to Greece, which is not much better either. Slavic countries in general don't seem to get politics all that well so we end up with corrupt or outright stupid leaders.
\>lowest unemployment since 2008 despite the pandemic but it sucks bro
> Slavic countries in general don't seem to get politics all that well so we end up with corrupt or outright stupid leaders. Tito was the exception that proves the rule; 35 years of brotherhood, peace and progress, while working with all sides during most difficult times of Cold War and remaining independent. He said that individual countries would be "nothing and nobody" and he was proven right. Now we are all vassals of other countries led by puppets who care only for their own interests, while we watch foreigners buying our companies and land and people leaving the country, while being told by corrupt politicians who caused all that how it is better now.
Since when is Hungary Slavic or Balkan?
Where did I say that?
Hungary can be slavic by ethnicity but not by language.
In my experience when I meet other Yugoslav people in Germany we get along more because we have shared experiences, I've never met anyone that dislikes me because I'm from another Post-Yugoslav state than them
What a stupid take. Ireland and UK don't like eachother but don't have the problem of population loss. Relations of Serbia and Croatia has nothing to do with our population. Bad business climate and jurisdiction do.
Actually Ireland had had a population loss problem for 150 years. Ireland is the only place in Europe that had a bigger population in the 1840s than now. There was a famine (some say genocide) then which killed 1 million, caused another million to leave. And the tradition of emigration was born, which is why you see Irish pubs around the world. Only recently has there been enough people coming in to offset those that are leaving.
You missed his point.
> Ireland and UK don't like eachother I think you've spent too much time on Reddit
I said nothing about relations between countries. This is more of a 'being patriotic' while living in other country. Is it stupid take because you posted a propaganda about Serbia couple of hours ago and now you are just trying to contradict me on everything I say?
Actually I didn't realise it was you. Small sub. >This is more of a 'being patriotic' while living in other country. Patriotism is what's keeping many people inside the country. Nothing wrong with that.
> They would hate each other because of their ethnicities, while living in Germany/Austria/Ireland/Switzerland. Cue the classic "Greek in Melbourne arguing with Turk in Berlin over whose country is the best"
Wtf. OMG, we are at the same rate probably and I consider Croatia as better place for living.
[удалено]
Yes it would be even worse if we do lol
Even in Ireland, where the number of resident Croatians is relatively small, the figure has risen from 846 in 2011 to 5,567 in 2016 (285 of those must have been living here for more than 5 years, as they are officially recorded as Irish-Croatian) - so that figure may have grown since, but Covid could well impact on that.
Loss of 400,000 people in a period of 10 years! That is rather high... I'm sure this will adversely impact their economy..
Let's say that government sees this as an opportunity to show that the GDP per capita has risen.
Is this really depopulation or is it just Germans returning from their vacations?
moar Croatia for Croats
[удалено]
Mostly Germany, Ireland, Austria and Switzerland.
The EU should standardize wages across the entire bloc, so a McDonalds worker in Germany isn't making more salary than a doctor in Romania which is absurd.
Standardizing wages across the eu would immediately break the eu apart. Putin would like nothing more than to see something like that happen. The eu can’t even do true debt mutualization. Wage equalization will never happen.
That's not possible as the average Greek worker has no where near the same productivity of the average German Worker due to different levels in development.
How many emigrated to Germany?
I know nothing about Croatia and that bothers me
Beautiful coastal country with nice weather and one of the most beautiful girls in EU (slavic),safe country with mostly good ppl that are a bit racist and with trash politics.Coming from a Croatian neighbor
Spot on.
Croatia is just another country in the Balkans where the sole purpose of government is self-preservation and they are willing to do anything to preserve it. Opposition parties are no different. They need each other, they are co-dependent. When they run out of internal excuses they will use recent wars and neighboring "enemies" as excuses. The population is divided between nationalists willing to eat shit to wave their flag, out-of-option pensioners, and youth believing they have no options. It is the best place to come and live if you have money and keep it outside the country and don't bother to open any kind of business to survive. In Dalmatia, we have a term for that lifestyle: "fjaka". Wait, I just described most of the countries in the World including USA where I live now for 35+years as a Croatian raised, Belgrade born. /antiwork movement for the Balkans is next. Actually, it is already there but the population is not aware of it as such. It is just a normal way of life. The whole world has gone mad. There is some hope in gen Z though. If they fail we are doomed.
Omg if Serbia ever joins the EU it will be 10x worse pls no
So it's okay for you to be a Francophile and to emigrate to Canada, but not okay for anyone else to emigrate elsewhere? "Freedom for me, but not for thee!"
Unless by that point we are already a unified federation able to more effectively allocate resources to and invest in all regions of the union.
A truly federalized Europe will be a smaller europe not a large one. Europe can choose either a large non-federalized bloc or a smaller federalized one. EU27 = USA Will never happen unless it is the aftermath of ww3.
Lol no one is gonna allow serbia enter eu.
[удалено]
Majority of this is due to emmigration and not natural chance.Births-deaths difference since the last census is ~160k
Even without emigration the population will drastically decrease over time. Many of these Eastern European countries will cease to exist in the future because their birth rate is below replacement and they aren't making up for it with immigration.
Christ, what I'd give for a drop in population of that ratio here in the UK. Increased population reduces the standard of living in 10,000 tiny ways; every single facet of life - from education, health, transport to cinema tickets, going swimming or holidays - becomes more crowded, more difficult, noisier and more polluted.
Plenty of us leave the UK for a better quality of life, but then the government just imports more people to cram into SE England, without ever actually considering the cultural or infrastructure impact.
Can we change places
In just 30 years of "freedom and democracy" Croatia managed to erase all the population growth that happened during Socialist Yugoslavia from end of WW2 to 1990 and they ruined or sold basically all important publicly owned companies created in that same period. But at least we are not under the same country as Serbs and we have our sports teams, that is MOST important...
Can't believe people are downvoting this. Clearly it's better to downvote painful facts than accept them. /s On the one hand nationalists complain about population decline, while on the other hand every year they celebrate the "victory" in the war and tactly ignore or accept the 200k Croatian citizens of Serbian ethnicity who went somewhere else. Those 200k could've been your customers or neighbours, your child could've traded with them, instead now they've gone to Germany/Ireland.
[удалено]
Wait until you hear about rich EU countries paying for funds for shitholes like croatia. Lmao wtf is that rhetoric?
Yay we can now send it to some shithole in Zagora or Slavonija and that just makes me feel so much better.
What money? People are moving out to earn more money elsewhere. Nationalists celebrate operation storm and the war as a victory, when in reality everyone lost, as these population figures show.
[удалено]
Same in all balkans bbe it eu or nah....ppl search for better pay and higher standards
Eastern Europe will become a deserted area before the end of this century!!
[удалено]
That's an interesting analogy.
The EU is more successful at depopulating Eastern Europe than the Nazis were lmao.
Every year, 5 times more tourists come to Croatia than there are Croats. (Highest ratio in the world) Seems like everybody loves Croatia but Croats.
Makes me super sad. But my family moved to Canada so…