Croatia is the one market where you can name the exact date CE marking became mandatory for a steel lighting column: 1 February 2005. The Croatian official gazette, Narodne novine 58/2016, publishes the list of harmonised standards for construction products, and its Annex 1 entry for HRN EN 40-5:2008, “Rasvjetni stupovi – 5. dio: Zahtjevi za čelične rasvjetne stupove”, gives an application date of 1 February 2003 and an end of coexistence period of 1 February 2005. From that date a steel lighting column placed on the Croatian market needs CE marking and a Declaration of Performance. There is no ambiguity to negotiate.
Artay Lighting has cast aluminium in its own die-cast foundry in Istanbul since 1999 and exports to more than 33 countries. This page sets out which Croatian standards apply and in which edition, what the bura does to a design wind calculation, and how the border and the tender portal work.
Which Croatian standards apply, and in which edition?
The standards body is HZN, the Croatian Standards Institute, and European standards carry the HRN EN prefix. The editions matter here more than in most markets, because a supplier quoting a superseded edition is quoting a withdrawn document.
| Croatian standard | What it covers |
|---|---|
| HRN EN 40-5:2008 | Steel lighting columns; adopts EN 40-5:2002; harmonised for CE marking |
| HRN EN 40-1:2008 | Definitions and terms |
| HRN EN 40-3-1:2013 | Characteristic loads |
| HRN EN 40-3-2:2013 | Verification by testing |
| HRN EN 13201-2, -3, -4:2016 | Road lighting performance, calculation and measurement |
| HRN EN ISO 1461:2022 | Hot-dip galvanized coatings; supersedes the 2010 and 2001 editions |
We did not individually confirm HRN EN 40-2, 40-3-3 or 40-6 in the repository, so if a tender names one of those, ask for the designation and year rather than assuming the adoption year matches the others.
What does the bura do to the design wind?
More than anything else on this page. The bura is a downslope wind that falls off the Dinaric range onto the Adriatic coast in gusts rather than in a steady stream, and it is the reason a coastal Croatian design wind velocity has nothing in common with an inland European one. Gusts of 248 km/h at Krk and 250.2 km/h at Makarska on 26 January 1996 are widely reported; we could not confirm those readings against the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service, so treat them as an indication of scale rather than as a design figure.
The design figure is the one that belongs in the tender: the reference wind velocity for the site, taken from the national annex, fed into EN 40-3-1 for characteristic loads and verified under EN 40-3-3 by calculation. Two consequences follow for anyone specifying on the coast. Gust loading rather than mean wind speed drives the design, so a pole selected from a catalogue table for “coastal” use without a site calculation is a guess. And the bura loads the bracket and the luminaire as much as the shaft, which is where an oversized decorative luminaire on a slender arm becomes the weak point rather than the column.
Ask for the calculation at the site velocity. A supplier who cannot produce one at 45 or 50 m/s is telling you something.
What about corrosion on the Adriatic?
ISO 12944-2 classifies corrosivity by category, and the definitions are the honest way to use them: C3 covers coastal areas with low salinity, C4 industrial areas and coastal areas with moderate salinity, C5 coastal areas with high salinity together with high humidity and aggressive atmosphere, and CX offshore areas and subtropical atmospheres. No standard assigns a category to a named stretch of coast; the specification writer names it and the coating system follows.
What is particular to the Adriatic is that the bura carries sea spray inland, so a site that looks sheltered on a map can sit in the same chloride regime as the shoreline. The mechanism, and what it means for fixings, base details and the access door, is set out in the coastal lighting poles guide.
How do goods and tenders move?
Croatia joined the EU in July 2013 and withdrew from CEFTA on accession, so CEFTA is not the framework for anything arriving there. What applies is the EU-Türkiye Customs Union, resting on Association Council Decision 1/95 and in force since 1 July 1996, covering industrial products. Free circulation is evidenced by the A.TR movement certificate – which proves free circulation, not origin, and which since 8 July 2024 may be issued electronically with a QR code and no wet-ink signature.
Tenders are published through EOJN, the Electronic Public Procurement Classifieds, operated within the Official Gazette at eojn.nn.hr. The Public Procurement Act makes it the mandatory domestic publication channel: Article 32(1) requires contracting authorities to publish contract notices there. Documents are in Croatian, and the notice itself states the language a tender must be drawn up in – so read that clause rather than assuming.
What can Artay supply for a Croatian project?
Hot-dip galvanized steel poles to EN ISO 1461, up to 12 m, fabricated to the EN 40 series and verified by calculation under EN 40-3-3 at the site wind velocity; and cast aluminium poles, bollards and luminaire housings from our own foundry in Başakşehir, Istanbul, in EN AC-46000 (AlSi9Cu3) alloy with chromate pre-treatment before electrostatic powder coating. Luminaires are CE marked, and manufacturing is certified to TSE under TS EN 40 for lighting columns and to ISO 9001 for quality management. Ask for the certificate together with its scope – a certificate covering luminaires does not cover columns.
We do not make high-mast poles, and we buy in extruded aluminium profile rather than extruding it ourselves, as most of this market does. What we do make from nothing is a form: because the aluminium is cast rather than fabricated, a historic old town or a marina can have a pole of its own rather than a catalogue one. A new die is cut in our own tool shop in four to six weeks and a first delivery follows seven to nine weeks after drawing approval; repeat orders on that die ship in three weeks. Changing only height, diameter, wall thickness, arm length or RAL colour needs no die at all and carries no minimum order.
Send a drawing, a tender specification or a written requirement to info@artaylighting.com and we will return a technical drawing, a wind-load calculation at your stated velocity, and a delivery date.
Related guides
- Coastal lighting poles – chloride, corrosivity categories, fixings and cable entry.
- Lighting poles for Greece – the other EU market on this coast, and the specification its tenders cite.
- Street lighting pole types – the four families, and how a galvanized steel pole is made.
- Lighting pole materials – galvanized steel, cast aluminium and extruded profile compared.
- OEM and private label manufacturing – tooling cost, minimum order and lead times in writing.
- Lighting poles for Serbia – SRPS EN designations, CE alongside the domestic 3A mark, and a Serbian-language Declaration of Performance.
- Lighting poles for Kosovo – CE recognised in law, but duty on industrial goods is still being phased out.
- The EN 40 series explained – which part does what, which one carries CE marking, and what EN 40 leaves to other standards.