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| The flag of the European Union, of Croatia and several hundred euros together in the montage |
Less than a month after Croatia joined the eurozone and replaced its currency with the euro, many Croatians are complaining about price increases that they say are unjustified. The country is also facing a high level of inflation.
Since Croatia became the 20th country to adopt the euro on January 1 this year, retailers have been accused of using the situation to boost profits.
Some experts say stores are rounding up prices to euros or marking them up to 50 percent, rather than simply converting them to euros. According to the official exchange rate, 1 euro is exchanged for 7.53 Croatian kuna.
But retailers blame high inflation. In turn, the government announced measures, including sending inspectors to stores, as well as requiring large retail chains to report the prices of each product every two weeks, according to reports.
On Friday, the state inspectorate announced that after an inspection of about 1,000 stores, it had identified an unjustified price increase in about a quarter of them. They said they had imposed more than 240 fines.
"As soon as I left the store, the prices for everything increased. They are rounding the prices, increasing them, we have nothing to do", says Jasna Janković, a pensioner from Zagreb.
"When I see the most basic products, butter, bread, milk, the prices are unaffordable for them. This is not the increase we were warned about, it is 10 or 20 percent more", says Damar Arbanas, another pensioner from Zagreb.
Three companies that provide telecommunications services announced that they will raise prices in February.
However, there are those who say that the debate over price increases is exaggerated.
"Every country that introduced the euro faced these problems. We are the ones who have to learn to calculate from euro to kuna, because we still convert the prices to kuna first, instead of doing the calculations in euro," said Zeljka, a pensioner from the Croatian capital, Zagreb.
In December, the inflation rate was 13.1 percent, down slightly from the all-time high of 13.5 percent recorded in November.