Today is the three years since Croatia's accession to the European Union. Three years ago, most farmers voted AGAINST joining the EU in a referendum because we knew it would be bad for us, but no one could have imagined that it would be as bad as it is today. Our job is to process milk and produce cheeses and other dairy products and up until three years ago we were growing, employment was growing, we were investing in the dairy, developing new products, in a word we were a successful business. Then came the "Lady EU" , which is often portrayed as a fat queen in a blue dress with a 12-star crown, but for Croatian farmers, she turned out to be an ugly witch on a broom.

What are the arguments for this attitude? Up until three years ago, the price of milk and dairy products was acceptable for farmers and producers and consumers. For the last 15 years, inspections have been making an effort to form the food processing industry to according to the highest standards applied in food production regardless of the size of the facility, so even we, the small ones, had to take out large loans at high rates to prepare for entering the EU.

Milk producers were told that they needed to build large farms, almost apartment buildings for cows, which cost double and triple the actual value because the construction industry lobbying was in full swing, however, the price of milk was decent, optimal. What remains today are credits that are reprogrammed indefinitely, and banks live off of interest.

Consumers may think they are winning because today they can buy milk and cheese cheaper than 15 years ago, but they forget that it is not Croatian milk, that now we are a common market, and Croatia has become the only EU country where dumping or selling products at lower prices than producer price is allowed.

The consequences of three years of being in the EU have been halved livestock fund, reduced milk production, numerous foreclosed farms that are empty, farmers on the verge of existence, and those of us who are still working, are taking out new loans to return the old ones, selling our goods for next to nothing because we cannot compete with mega-production from EU countries. The life standard is low and consumers only look at the price and only a few can afford to buy products manufactured in Croatia from Croatian milk. In Croatia, the milk-producing farmers are paid the most in the EU (among the top 5 countries). The taxes, contributions, and other parafisical levies are among the highest in the EU, and the help of the country is among the lowest in the EU. How to fight with the big ones, how to take your place on the shelf, when the owners of most of the chain stores are foreigners who prefer products from home countries, which are even cheaper because they have come to Croatia to earn, not to live here.

In Croatia, there is no law on fair Trading practices that would regulate relations between producers or processing industry and traders. The law is in the plan, but there's no telling when it's going to be made. The Law on Fair Trade Practice should specify a minimum percentage of Croatian goods that traders must have in their shops, such as the example of Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Romania, which require the shelves to have between 60 and 80% of domestic goods. The ratio of domestic and foreign goods is in Croatian stores 20:80 in favor of foreign products.

In the end, we can only emphasize that we are on our own, so we can only help each other by purchasing Croatian products made from Croatian milk or the Croatian livestock fund because that is how we help a large number of companies and individuals who pay taxes in Croatia and contribute to the betterment of Our Beautiful. We can only hope that our democratically elected representatives of the Government will come to their senses, wake up and make a more decisive commitment in Brussels, so that small Croatian farmers do not disappear.

EURO-MILK dairy

* We founded the company in 1992 when the European community seemed like a fairy tale, which is why we called the dairy EURO-MILK