Times of crisis require stronger solidarity. Mobile telephony operators are making huge profits during this crisis. However, the main reason for extending a special tax on mobile telephony services (in Croatia) is not fiscal but social and development-oriented so as to encourage the operators to invest more in the infrastructure and reduce the prices of their services, which are among the highest in Europe, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said at his cabinet's meeting today.

Also, those companies can earn high profits thanks to high-quality infrastructure which Croatia built in previous decades and thanks to the business facilities they have inherited, Milanovic said.

First Deputy Prime Minister Radimir Cacic said that the revenues from those fees would be HRK 300 million annually, which would have been sufficient for keeping 20,000 jobs which had been shed in the textile industry over the past three years.

Cacic said that mobile telephony companies operating in Croatia posted profits between HRK 13 and 15 billion, but they decided not to apply the European Commission's order on equalising roaming charges and charges for roaming in Croatia were three to four times higher.

He said that in the European Union, although they made lower profits, telecoms invested 100 euros per capita while in Croatia, where they made higher profits, their investment was EUR 55 per capita.

The first deputy PM said he expected serious talks with telecoms and that the government's investment programmes would make sure that telecoms be freed from paying taxes on reinvested profits.

Finance Minister Slavko Linic said that there was room for investing EUR 4.5 billion in optical cables.