The government, trade unions and employers are intensively working on several models to solve the problem of nonpayment of outstanding salaries to workers and the issue must be settled by 20 April, Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said on Monday after an Economic and Social Council (GSV) meeting in Zagreb.
It is unacceptable and impermissible not to pay salaries, PM Kosor told reporters, adding that social partners must find ways to break this "vicious circle" and ensure salaries for working people.
According to trade union federations' estimates, as many as 70,000 employed Croatians are not receiving salaries, and trade unions treat this issue as a priority in future talks with social partners on programmes for recovering from the crisis, expecting the GSV tripartite group to find appropriate solutions by 20 April.
Trade unionists do not insist on the establishment of a guarantee fund for ensuring money for outstanding salaries, which they proposed at the previous GSV meeting. According to unofficial information in the meantime, this proposal was described by the government and employers as unreal.
The guarantee fund is one of the possible solutions, and if there are better solutions I expect the government to propose them, union representative Mladen Novosel said.
Kosor informed the GSV of what her cabinet had done in implementing the bailout measures.
She said that she had also acquainted the social partners with new criteria for the reduction of the number of units of local self-government, explaining that the rationalisation of the local administration would probably start after the forthcoming parliamentary elections, as now it would cause additional turbulence.
Commenting on new regulations for determining fuel prices at petrol stations, Kosor said that the government had done its part of the job intervening in the excise tariff system and that it was also trying to help INA become stronger.
Employers' representative Matko Bolanca, who today assumed the GSV chairmanship for one year, said that the Council would continue discussing economic programmes proposed by the trade union federations and the Croatian Employers' Association.
He announced a special session on the functioning of the financial system with officials of the Croatian National Bank (HNB), the Croatian Banking Association and commercial banks.
