The protest rally was organised by two police unions and the civil servants' union. They said that the government's proposal did not determine the minimum severance pay, recalling that they had demanded that severance pay for 2013, 2014 and 2015 should not be lower than five average monthly salaries, which the government had rejected.

"When it comes to rescuing money-losing state companies, it's not a problem for the government to set aside hundreds of millions of kuna, as has been the case with the Brodosplit shipyard. It's not a problem for them to set aside hundreds of millions of kuna for severance packages in state companies, but they don't want to set aside an additional 30 million kuna annually for the severance packages of police officers, which is a disgrace," Police Union vice-president Branko Koren told the protesters outside the Cabinet building in St Mark's Square.

Protesters said that, unless their demands were met, next time they would come out in much larger numbers and take "surprising, but legitimate steps."

At its session of 25 October, the government adopted a bill of amendments to the Police Act in order to reduce severance payments for retiring police officers. It proposed that the payment of higher severance packages be deferred until January 1, 2016.

Interior Minister Ostojic explained then that there was no money for higher severance packages and added that the high severance pay could motivate more policemen to choose to retire which would cause even greater costs and disrupt the entire system.