Construction minister Marina Matulovic-Dropulic is persistent in not sitting down with the top people at the telecommunication companies The development of mobile telephony in Croatia came to a standstill six months ago, and the state inspectorates have begun the demolition of existing base stations, which threatens cellular telephone use. Over the past few weeks all three of Croatia's mobile telecom operators, T-Mobile, Vipnet and Tele2, came into open conflict with Minister of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning and Construction Marina Matulovic-Dropulic: while she has opted not to go on the record regarding the issue, the mobile operators are demanding an emergency meeting and a resolution of the problem that could see cellular phone signals disappearing across Croatia. Illustrative of the scale of the conflict is the fact that none of the operators have constructed a single new base station in the last six months, and that the ministry is announcing the demolition of the two hundred existing stations.

A massive telecommunications infrastructure is needed for the normal operation of cellular networks consisting of base stations, two-way radio stations through which each mobile device connects to the network allowing for the reception of telephone calls and unimpeded communication. Since the telecom operators began their operation in Croatia, each of them has constructed its own system of base stations, which fall into two categories: rooftop carriers, antennas that are installed on the roofs of buildings in cities and settled areas, and freestanding pylons that function as independent structures and for the most part look like antenna towers several metres in height. Since communication is wireless in mobile networks, it is obvious that dozens of base stations have been installed along the highway from Zagreb to Split allowing travellers to make phone calls. Over the past few years mobile operators have constructed several thousand of these stations: and even though the information is classified business data, it is estimated that T-Mobile has about 1500, Vipnet over 1000, and Tele2 about 700. They have provided for maximum signal coverage across the entire country so that it is nowadays hard to find an area without a mobile phone signal or where an overload of users in large municipal centres could, as a result of limited capacity, mean a call could not be made.

The construction of cellular infrastructure has always been linked to specific issues. The rapid growth of the cellular phone industry and the development of new technologies has led to a need for the rapid construction of new stations, which has been hampered by Croatian legislation as it treats mobile operator antennas as typical buildings, meaning that dozens of permits have to be procured for the construction of even the smallest antenna, as if a house was to be built. The other problem is an even greater paradox: the majority of people want quality cellular phone signal coverage everywhere and at all times, and mobile operators have installed base stations on the roofs of tall buildings, and it took only a single disgruntled tenant or a local environmentalist to create a conflict situation, demanding that the construction of an antenna be forbidden or an existing one removed "because of radiation".

From 1995 to October of 2007, mobile operators nevertheless succeeded in constructing networks: the then existing construction and zoning legislation stipulated that the competent ministry issued permits for each new base station, and the Telecommunications Act treated the entire telecom infrastructure as being of national interest and construction permits were issued. In October of last year, however, the new Act on Physical Planning and Construction came into force, unfavourable for the telecom industry: each mobile operator antenna is treated as a typical building for which location permits and a number of other papers need to be procured, a transcript from the cadastral plan, a preliminary design, architects' verifications and proof of legal interest.

ACCORDING TO THE NEW LAW, any building that has a base station on its roof is considered a telecommunication structure The biggest problem to have cropped up relates to the fact that permits are no longer issued by the Ministry, but by local government, and in smaller municipalities and towns there is either no department that could issue mobile operators the needed permits or one that does not function, and the preferential treatment of an operator or outright racketeering has been rendered possible: to get permission to install its antennas in a given place, and operator could be blackmailed to earmark million-kuna donations to the local budget. That means that in some smaller settlements only a single operator might have signal coverage, that of the operator that accepted the "conditions" of some local bigwig. The new legislation no longer treats mobile operator antennas as simple structures for which there is no need for comprehensive documentation; instead each antenna becomes a telecommunication structure. In other words, a five-storey residential building is registered as a residential structure until an antenna is installed on its roof – at that moment the entire building becomes a "telecommunication structure ". And for mobile operators to procure permits from local governments there has to be a local zoning plan, which is already a notorious problem in Croatia, and for the most part not even the existing ones have foreseen special purpose structures such as telecommunication structures. The situation that has emerged has been worrying mobile operators for the past five months: as a result of the new law they cannot legalise the numerous antennas they have built, and the construction of new ones has ground to a halt, because the legislative vacuum makes it impossible for them to procure the necessary permits and built legally.

They point out that that has led to a stoppage on investments worth several hundreds of million euro, and it is an open question what the state intends to do with the existing investments. And although all three mobile operators have tried to get answers from the ministry led by Marina Matulovic-Dropulic and a possible resolution to the problem, there has been only silence from that ministry for months, and inspectorate orders are arriving practically every week for the demolition of existing base stations, so far for over two hundred. The operators have also tried to get into contact with Minister Dropulic by way of the Ministry of Transport and Communication, and by way of the top people at the Croatian Telecommunication Agency, but it appears that, even with them, she is unwilling to discuss telecommunication problems. In mid-January, Gasper Gacina, the head of the Telecommunication Agency, told operators that even his many memos to the Minister were going unanswered.

The culmination of the conflict occurred on 6 February when Zagreb hosted a conference on Investment in Croatia and Competitiveness on the Telecommunications Market. There all of the operators complained that it had been practically rendered impossible for them to operate legally in Croatia, and Drazen Breglec, the State Secretary at the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, admitted that there were significant problems and revealed that the inspection teams sent out by Marina Matulovic-Dropulic plan to dismantle 199 base stations over the coming months. By all accounts, it appears that this problem will only find a resolution when – the cell phones fall silent.