The European country that has lost 10% of its population in 10 years (and how it tries to reverse this “demographic catastrophe”)

Ivan Sabolić has witnessed how little by little his village is running out of people.

Legrad, located in the middle of the 16th century in the heart of a Union made up of the kingdoms of Croatia and Hungary, became a successful trading city by decree in the 1480s, due to its advantageous geographical location.

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But today very little remains of that boom period.

Of the nearly 3,000 inhabitants that were registered in the 2001 census, today only about 900 remain and the population continues to decrease, according to Sabolić, its mayor.

“Many young people have left and continue to go to work in Germany, Austria and Slovenia,” he says in an interview with BBC Mundo.

“There are not many opportunities, the salaries are low and if this does not change people will keep leaving“, he adds.

Legrad is not an isolated case. In reality, all cities and towns in the country, with the exception of the capital Zagreb, are experiencing what experts call a “demographic catastrophe”.

More Croats abroad

Croatia had 4.3 million inhabitants in 2011; today it has about 3.8 million and the figure is in free fall.

It is estimated that by 2050 the population of this small European country will be 3.4 million and by 2100 it could drop a million morewarns the UN.

Croatia is facing one of the fastest population declines in the world since its population peaked at 4.78 million in 1991, the year it gained independence after the collapse of the former Yugoslavia.

Croatia.

“In the last 20 years the population has decreased by more than half a million people. It is estimated that today there are more Croats living in the diaspora than in his homeland,” Monika Komušanac, professor at the Department of Demography and Croatian Diaspora at the University of Zagreb, tells BBC Mundo.

“We are very concerned about the demographic future of Croatia, the current trend could affect the future functioning of national public systems, health, pensions, etc.”, he says.

The reasons

The causes of the “demographic catastrophe” that is approaching in this country of the Balkan peninsula are varied.

Legrad, Croatia. (REUTERS).

The number of births has been plummeting since the 1980s. This, combined with a high mortality rate, has meant that since 1991 the natural demographic balance is negative: More Croatians die than are born.

In the year 2020, Croatia recorded the worst natural growth rate in its history, with around 20,000 more deaths than births.

To this is added the Croatian migration traditionwhose inhabitants have sought better opportunities abroad since the end of the 15th century.

migratory waves

The emigration rate had several peaks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and then after the First and Second World Wars.

House with a “for sale” notice in eastern Croatia. (GETTY IMAGES).

After Croatian independence, the attacks by nationalist groups supporting Greater Serbia in the early 1990s caused a large number of displaced people and refugees inside and outside Croatia.

And, more recently, emigration took on a renewed impetus with the Croatia joining the European Union (EU) in 2013.

Since then, more than 263,000 Croats have left the country, about 33,000 a year.

Demographer Monika Komušanac highlights that the actual number of Croats who have emigrated since accession to the EU could be “at least double“Because not everyone who leaves Croatia is registered in the national statistics.

But in reality this is difficult to know exactly.

Due to the complicated history of the balkan peninsulamillions of its citizens can obtain passports from other neighboring countries, which are especially attractive if these countries are part of the EU, such as Croatia or Romania, as this gives them the right to work in any country of the Union.

Experts estimate that many of the Croatian passport holders working in other EU nations are likely to be from Bosnia.

But for Komušanac it is even more worrying that almost 60% of the emigrants are young people between 20 and 44 years old.

“We have a labor shortage, our health workers are working in other European countries, there are fewer children in schools and more elderly people who add pressure to the social and pension system,” he explains.

A house for less than 1US$

Faced with the gradual depopulation of Legrad, Mayor Ivan Sabolić launched a plan last year to attract new residents selling abandoned houses for one kuna (US$14 cents).

One of the houses for sale under US$1 in Croatia. (REUTERS).

The requirements to buy these homes are to be financially solvent, to be under 40 years old and to commit to living in them for at least 15 years.

When someone dies without an heir in Croatia the property passes into the hands of the municipality and this had become “a problem” for Mayor Sabolić.

But his office quickly found people seriously interested in the 19 houses he put up for sale, and by the end of May 2022 there was only one left to sell.

A passerby walks past a vacant house with a for-sale sign in eastern Croatia, in December 2021. (Getty Images)

US$28,000 for those who return

At the national level, late last year the country’s prime minister, Andrej Plenković, announced a new program dubbed “I choose Croatia,” offering grants of up to 200,000 kuna (US$28,000) to Croats returning from other countries of the EU with plans to start their own business.

But the scheme has not had the expected successas reported at the end of April by the television network RTLone of the main in the country.

Monika Komušanac, a demographer at the University of Zagreb, knows many people in her circle who have left the country and agrees that it is “a big problem for many to find a permanent job”.

But for her there are other triggers that make locals emigrate, such as the “disorder” of Croatian society, which, she says, is “full of scandals, corruption and nepotism“.

“Young people have lost their idealism, their trust in institutions and in society, and they see no signs of change,” he adds.

In addition, he believes that the government’s national population policy, defined in 2006, must change: “it proposes very modest aid for newborn babies and does not include support for families with more than one child.”

To prevent the “demographic catastrophe” from continuing, the mayor of Legrad asks the central government to promote the foreign immigration to fill jobs and encourage wage increases to increase competitiveness with labor markets in other European countries:

“Croats will continue to go to other countries like Germany or Austria because the salaries are higher there. If this does not change, we will become a country without youth”.

Source: Elcomercio