Due to the government crisis caused by the utterly dysfunctional right-wing government which will most likely have to face dissolution this week and leave its fate in the hands of early elections, it would be safe to say that Croatian publishing is going through the worst crisis it has ever experienced since the end of Yugoslav wars.
For the first time since the independence, the publishing sector is almost entirely left to the uncertainties of the market because the usual budgetary support has not been allocated. The main reasons lie in the heedless and dysfunctional Ministry of Culture and the political pressures exerted by the newly-elected officials led by Minister Zlatko Hasanbegović. The Councils of Culture which allocated the aforementioned funds have been disbanded or, due to pressure and unwillingness to comply with their decisions, have resigned from their post.
An equally severe issue is the purchasing of books for the public libraries that has not been carried out this year. Therefore, the publishers have been unable to fulfil their annual plans, while libraries and end users – the readers – have been deprived of a number of books, which were not even published or are difficult to obtain.
If new elections are held in autumn, taking into account the current delays, this will amount to more than a year of delayed budget funds intended for book publishing. It is a question whether and in which form will it survive cultural and political devastation that it has been exposed to.
