In just ten years, from 2011 to 2021, Croatia lost 413.056 inhabitants, and according to the last census, it has 3.871.833. In that decade, it lost a city the size of Slavonski Brod every year. At the same time, Croatia, which has emigrated, is estimated to number between 3 and 4 million people, and the return of the diaspora could be significant for demographic and economic renewal. Therefore, a group of experts launched a broad initiative, Marshall Plan Croatia – Future with the Diaspora, within which the Cro Green project – Project for a Sustainable Future of Croatia with a Strong Demographic and Other Role of the Diaspora, which included several solutions. The project was also presented to the Prime Minister and received the principled support of the Croatian government, writes News reporter.
This project starts from all of Croatia's natural advantages, and includes demographic revitalization - especially of rural areas and abandoned villages, with a significant role for the diaspora in the development of the Republic of Croatia, organic agriculture and sustainable production of healthy food, regional cooperation and sustainable development, or an investment and return model based on the knowledge, experience and capital of our emigrants.
Migration balance
– Demographic decline in the Republic of Croatia is a deep-rooted problem that cannot be solved in one generation, but the return of the diaspora, especially the youth, can be key in mitigating it. If we look at the current global political and economic situation, it is clear that many of our people are starting to think about returning. The poor economic and political situation in parts of South America is encouraging emigrants to seek an alternative and new challenges in returning. In the USA, political instability is creating a sense of insecurity that is spilling over to Canada, while in Europe, and especially in Germany, the long-term recession is increasingly affecting young people and their perception of the future. All of this is creating new circumstances in which returning to Croatia is becoming a serious option, and this year it is expected that the number of returnees will be higher than the number of those leaving for the first time, says the advisor to the Government of the Republic of Croatia for immigration Zdenko Striga, president of the Marshall Plan Croatia Association. If the state and local communities create the conditions for a quality life, a secure existence and professional opportunities, he adds, return can become a powerful engine of revitalization, which will not completely stop negative trends, but it can change the image of Croatia as a country to which it is returning. »And this is precisely where its greatest chance for demographic recovery lies,« Štriga assesses.
After a large wave of emigration from the former state, mostly to Germany, where our largest emigrant community is still located today, during the period of the independent Republic of Croatia, emigration, unlike the previous departure of individuals in search of work, in many cases also brought their families with them. This left the country with a generation of working, but also childbearing active people of fertile age, which further affected the demographic picture of the country. Until the 2020s, these were departures, and statements that "Slavonia is no longer the promised land that people came to" became like a phrase. However, the "emigration bubble" reached an overstrain, and recently, a return has timidly begun. And this process is slowly gaining strength in the meantime.
Strategic initiative
The returnee story also has a second medal – encountering sluggish and cumbersome bureaucracy, distrust, and in the countries of yesterday they achieved successful careers. This, says the Government Advisor, is the exact opposite of the examples of countries like Ireland that have systematically built returnee policies and managed to attract hundreds of thousands of their people home. The Republic of Croatia has still not found a quality return model, he assesses, and there is also a lack of a clear political decision that would confirm how important the diaspora really is to us and how we want to systematically include it in demographic and economic recovery. Villages have been particularly demographically devastated, and are expected to give rise to generational renewal for rural areas, agriculture and food production in such conditions. On the other hand, with its geographical, climatic and other diversity, land, water and other resources, we are a God-given country, part of the great Central European breadbasket, so we could feed much more people with our capabilities than within our own borders. Generations have grown up in the diaspora who want to replace life in big cities with life in the countryside, agriculture, and healthy food.
The team gathered around Cro Green says that this initiative offers solutions to connect our strengths and opportunities, but also to include the diaspora in these processes.
- Cro Green is conceived as a strategic initiative that connects the return of the diaspora with the development of sustainable, eco-agriculture and the revitalization of rural areas. The starting point of the project is the fact that the Republic of Croatia is a country that God and nature have given ideal conditions for food production, fertile soil, abundant water, sun and climate diversity, and at the same time we face the paradox that we import food of dubious quality, while we use our own resources insufficiently, says Štriga. It is a network of pilot projects and development centers that will bring together experts, returnees and local communities. The goal is to create OPGs, cooperatives and agro-eco centers that will provide conditions for young families and returnees to start their own production, receive professional support and be involved in modern value chains. The project also includes infrastructural elements, such as logistics centers for purchase and distribution, etc., with a view not only to agriculture, but to the broader socio-economic picture: the return of young people, the creation of new jobs, the revitalization of villages and smaller towns, and the strengthening of the resilience of the Republic of Croatia in times of global food and energy crises.
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