A little less than €81 million will be made available from the state budget to settle part of the overdue obligations of state or county-owned hospitals to suppliers of medicines, consumables and implantable medical devices. This was decided by the Croatian government at its meeting on Thursday.

Due to the general price increase caused by macroeconomic circumstances, the Croatian Health Insurance Fund will pay out 79.77 million euros to state hospitals and 1.16 million euros to county hospitals.

This decision was taken in order to maintain the same level of healthcare throughout the country and to ensure the smooth functioning of hospitals.

The overdue obligations are the same as last year, but lower than two years ago, said Health Minister Vili Beros, citing “financial stabilisation as part of the ongoing comprehensive reform” of the healthcare system.

Decision to finalise the structural and comprehensive reconstruction of 217 buildings

The government has also taken a decision on the co-financing of grant recipients participating in the structural and comprehensive reconstruction of earthquake-damaged buildings, which was started under the EU Solidarity Fund.

Construction Minister Branko Bacic said that the total value of works on 1,309 projects agreed under the Solidarity Fund amounts to €3.6bn (€1.03bn from the Solidarity Fund, €1.5bn from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and €1.5bn from the state budget and other sources). He added that 999 of these projects have been completed, 267 are ongoing and 43 are in the procurement phase.

Of the 267 ongoing projects, 217 are the subject of Thursday’s decision and their total value is €2.5bn. The authorities responsible for these projects are the Ministry of Culture and Media, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth.

Reconstruction of 12,182 buildings in Zagreb and Petrinja completed

The Ministry of Science, Education and Youth will receive €186 million, the Ministry of Health €203 million and the Ministry of Culture and Media €205 million, Bacic said.

Bacic also presented a regular monthly progress report on post-earthquake reconstruction. According to the report, the reconstruction of 12,182 buildings has been completed in the Zagreb and Petrinja areas, including 11,541 private buildings and 641 projects under the Solidarity Fund, and a total of 45,854 housing units have been renovated.

“So far, we have invested 2.6 billion euros from all sources in reconstruction, 256 replacement houses have been built and 270 are under construction. There are a total of 1,745 construction sites in the two affected areas and the award process is underway for 55 construction sites. Since the last report, 186 renovations have been completed,” said Bacic.