Member Article

Croatia?s EU status will challenge North

I have spent the last week in Croatia and was much taken by the friendliness of the people – as well as the excellent food and wine!

Their economy reminds me of this region about 30 years ago. It was when we were coming to terms with a restructure of our economy which had been so reliant on the traditional industries of coal, steel and shipbuilding.

Of course, we have made significant changes since then albeit that in the present economic decline we are challenged to achieve growth.

I was in Croatia to advise on development and regeneration. I found that the governance, although relatively new, was stable with much activity delegated to the regions, including the delivery of infrastructure to local councils.

This is in contrast to the UK where we are still immersed in central control from Whitehall.

However, there is the promise of change with funding through the Local Enterprise Partnerships for infrastructure investment and to kick-start developments that have stalled.

Like our region, Croatia is short on demand and finance. Their focus in the main is on tourism but with ambition for the qualitative standards. There is already a good provision for camping, holiday parks and hotels.

From what I could gauge in the off-season, and taking at face value local comment, these facilities are fully occupied during the summer season.

What I liked was their mayoral city regions. In the area that I visited, the mayor had been in post for 11 years and with elections in May, is forecast to hold his mayoralty for another term. This gives much-needed stability when achieving economic growth.

Their planning system is a great deal less complicated than ours. The uses and the capacity – that is floor area, height of building and number of bedrooms per dwelling – are stipulated on the spatial plans of the region and for the municipality. Developers put forward urban development plans for approval.

This leaves the developer and his team relatively free to be innovative with design, provided good sustainable practice is met. I am assured that their plans after consultation with the council are quickly dealt with, since there is realism that to achieve much-needed economic growth, pragmatism and speedy decisions are taken.

The search for investors and occupiers is challenging and there is accountability for success at all levels.

I was impressed by the willingness to succeed and the goodwill of all involved to achieve success and at the right level of quality.

Croatia should enter the EU on July 1 and there is an expectation that this will open up markets so far untapped.

The European Union said “…as a result of the EU accession, Croatia will be better positioned and will have a stronger influence in the world and better chances for dealing with the process and consequences of globalisation”.

As an economy that must compete on a global scale, the North East will be certainly challenged by Croatia’s new status and if all new EU entrants are similar, this region cannot afford to be complacent about the competition they pose to our future success.

I am encouraged by the steps taken by our North East LEP and await with keen interest their economic plans due to be announced in February.

But whatever those plans are, we as a region need to be collaborative and in a delivery mode if the much-desired economic growth and job creation is to be achieved in the foreseeable future.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kevan Carrick .