Karlovac - A Croatian village on the Slovenian-Croatian border in the south-east, the last Croatian village that has remained connected to the Slovenian grid after the break-up of Yugoslavia, refuses to switch to Croatian electricity.

After being informed that all required infrastructure had finally been set up to enable the switch, all 143 villagers of Pravutina on the Croatian side of the Kolpa river near Črnomelj said they refuse to give up Slovenian electricity, Croatian media have reported.

Out of the dozen substations in Croatia that used to be connected to the Slovenian grid, the Croatian utility HEP has in the past connected all but one to the Croatian grid.

Now that the appropriate infrastructure has finally been set up for the last village, none of the Pravutina villages has consented to switching to the Croatian grid, saying the Slovenian power supply was much more reliable.

The Croatian newspaper Jutarnji List reported a few days ago that the villagers had signed a petition against the switch and sent it to HEP. They claim that the Slovenian grid is of higher quality than the Croatian, more stable and more reliable.

They have been connected to the Slovenian grid since 1955 and have experienced virtually no power cuts. Between 2018 and 2020 electricity supply was interrupted unannounced for only less than an hour, while a village near by, to which electricity is supplied by HEP, was out of power for about three days in 2018 and 2019 alone, the paper reported.

The villagers of Pravutina are reportedly ready to turn to EU institutions to protect their rights.

So far they have been paying electricity bills to HEP, which then transferred the money to Slovenia.

HEP's local office told Jutarnji List that several unplanned power cuts had indeed occurred in the area along the Kolpa river in the past year, but this was mainly due to the renovation of the grid. HEP can provide Pravutina with an "appropriate level of services," the office asserted.