Since last week, Croatian businesses have been faced with yet another para-fiscal tax. This time it is a fee to ensure the ethical advertisement of medicines, in the amount of 3 percent of the annual revenues of pharmaceutical companies in Croatia, or about HRK 100 million. The pharmaceutical industry will be required to pay this amount to the Croatian Institute for Health Insurance (CIHI) as a type of guarantee that they will abide by the provisions of the new Ordinance on ethical advertising of medicines that was adopted by the CIHI last week.

If the Ordinance is to be followed, HZZO would return that money to the pharmaceutical companies, however, since the collection and payment will take place quarterly, a hundred million kuna of their money would constantly be in state possession. In this way, it would appear that the pharmaceutical companies are financing the state without receiving any interest or collateral, in order to improve state liquidity. The primary author of this bizarre new ordinance is none other than Health Minister Darko Milinovic, who claims that the intent is to bring order to this part of the activities of the pharmaceutical industry. For example, pharmaceutical representatives in the future will be allowed to meet with doctors only once a month for a maximum of fifteen minutes. For the time being, many suspect that this is the state's way to creating a new mechanism to pressure the pharmaceutical companies.

President of the Association of Croatian Medicines Manufacturers (HUP) Matko Bolancec claims that the only real consequence of the ordinance will be to diminish the quality of services to patients. "This is a new blow to the pharmaceutical industry in Croatia. Last year, the market dropped by 10 percent, we are constantly faced with payments delayed up to 220 days, and I think it is irresponsible to subject the industry to a new tax under such circumstances, especially since the CIHI is acting from a monopolist's position. The fact is that the proposed model has not even been thoroughly considered, and we are expected to pay millions of kuna without any guarantee that we will get them back. CIHI is obliged to pay back the amount within 30 days, but that is not realistic to expect when it takes seven times longer to pay for medicines," he commented.