A series of measures designed to help citizens whose accounts have been frozen due to debts, as well as their creditors, is in the works, Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said on Thursday (March 22).

Speaking to reporters before a government session, Marić said the plan, worked on by the finance and justice ministries, should also help creditors, and will include changes to the way freezing bank accounts is legally handled.

“We know this problem did not come out of the blue, and we know the ‘blocked’ citizens are in a hurry to see these measures passed, but we are trying to find a whole set of measures, including some legal changes to eliminate this problem going forward,” Marić said.

According to data by the Financial Agency (Fina) at the end of January some 325,000 citizens owned frozen accounts, and their total debt amounted to almost 43 billion kuna (5.7 billion euros), mostly due to unpaid bills.

On Thursday, Jutarnji list daily reported that the first package of measures would include a writing off debts owed to the government. A second package would include writing off of debts owed to telecoms, utility companies, credit cards, and the like, which the government would encourage by offering tax breaks to creditors.

A third measure would involve a simplified, sped up, processing of consumer bankruptcy, a process which involves writing off some of the person’s debts. Conditions to file for such a bankruptcy would include a debt up to 20,000 kuna, and that their account has been frozen for longer than three years.