Kresimir Sever, president of the NHS union federation, said they were criticising the government for neglecting HZ, because of which Croatian railway workers would lose their jobs, telling Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor HZ needed money to survive.

Ivan Forgac, president of the Croatian Railway Workers Union, criticised Transport and Infrastructure Minister Bozidar Kalmeta for recently telling unionists that whoever won at the upcoming parliamentary election would have to start repairing the tracks, saying he should have seen to that in his eight years in office.

The unionists said they were bitter because the government was allowing HZ to go to ruin while the European Union was giving railways priority in land transport because of they used less energy and polluted less.

Zeljko Starcevic, head of the TZV Gredelj union, recalled the decision of the government and the HZ management to manufacture domestic trains for local and regional traffic, saying that a lot of money was invested in it, while now everything was falling apart. He said it was initially agreed to make 91 such trains, only to reduce the number to 45 and now 17, although nothing had been done yet.

Starcevic's colleague Miro Margeta said the government's decision to invest more than HRK 800 million in a new Gredelj factory was absurd, as nothing would be made in it.

Damir Jakus, president of the URSH union federation, said many other companies were going down because of the state of affairs in HZ. He added that Croatian companies should manufacture Croatian trains and carriages as well as repair the tracks.