Croatia has one of the fastest-shrinking populations in Europe, and the government is now putting real money behind efforts to turn that around. Demography and Immigration Minister Ivan Šipić visited Osijek this week to lay out plans for a new Demographic Renewal Act, a sweeping piece of legislation covering children, families, young people, returnees and regional development — with Slavonia, the country's hardest-hit region, at the centre.

The numbers explain the urgency. Osijek-Baranja County had 258,026 residents at the 2021 census, down 15.41% in a single decade. There is one bright spot: in 2025 the county recorded a positive net migration balance of 386 people, even though natural population growth stayed negative.

Housing is the headline measure. Under the county's Our Slavonia and Baranja – Our Home programme, 119 young families with 143 children received €640,000 in grants this year to build or renovate homes. A bigger scheme is coming: 52 residential units across 20 locations in 19 municipalities, mixing 43 family houses with three apartment blocks. Families would rent on long-term contracts of 10 to 30 years, with the option to buy gradually — a rent-to-own model aimed squarely at people who might otherwise leave. More than €6 million has gone into kindergartens, playgrounds and youth projects across the county between 2021 and 2026.

Osijek itself is scaling up childcare. City spending on early childhood education has jumped from €5.6 million in 2021 to €14.8 million budgeted for 2026, and births ticked up to 774 in 2025, 49 more than the year before. A proposed pilot called Mum, I'm Here would support new mothers in the first months after childbirth with practical household help and easier access to professional and healthcare services — and Osijek is in the frame to host the trial.

There is also a diaspora angle. Since 2019/2020, the ministry has funded scholarships for Croatian emigrants and their descendants to study the Croatian language at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek. Sixteen recipients are enrolled for 2026/2027, the highest figure yet and a 60% rise on the previous year. The thinking is simple: language is the first step to coming back.

For travellers, the story is a useful signal about where eastern Croatia is heading. Slavonia remains the country's least-visited region — think Baranja wetlands, Osijek's Austro-Hungarian old town and some of the cheapest food and wine in Croatia — and these programmes suggest a place trying to keep and attract residents rather than watch it empty out. The demographic push won't change a holiday itinerary overnight, but anyone curious about authentic inland Croatia, well off the Dubrovnik trail, is looking at a region that is quietly investing in its future.

Minister Šipić framed it as bigger than politics: demographic renewal, he said, is not the job of one ministry or one term in office, but a question of Croatia's future.