Leader of the largest opposition party, the centre-left Social Democrats (SDP), Davor Bernardic, held a news conference on Tuesday in which he talked about his party's plan to deal with the growing number of people with frozen bank accounts due to debts, a group dubbed "the blocked ones" in the local media.

“For years, there has been this problem of (court-ordered) repossessions and ‘blocked’ people. As a responsible party, we are here to offer concrete solutions. Just like we had abolished public debt collectors, reduced interests on arrears, solved the problem of loans denominated in Swiss francs, abolished the right that creditors had to charge fees for collection letters, we are here now to offer a solution for the problem of ‘blocked’ citizens,” Bernardic said.

In 2015, when Social Democrats led by then Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic were in power, the government had rolled out a plan to wipe out debts of the country’s poorest citizens.

Nevertheless, at the end of February, some 324,700 Croatians had their bank accounts frozen due to debt, with their collective debt amounting to more than 43.1 billion kuna (€5.8 billion). In addition, some 24,000 businesses had their accounts frozen as well, owing a total of 13.6 billion (€1.8 billion), according to data from the government’s Financial Agency.

Around half of the debt is thought to have been incurred due to missed loan repayments and interests, and a significant portion is due to unpaid utility and telecom bills.

Bernardic said that SDP’s plan to help people with frozen accounts would involve simplifying bankruptcy procedures and banning predatory lending practices, as well as unnecessary costs associated with debt repayment.

“The thing to do is to introduce a shortened personal bankruptcy procedure, in order to simplify and speed up the process, and also make it more affordable for debtors,” Bernardic said, and added that (under the proposed system) the principal should be paid back in parallel with interest rates.

“The main goal is for ‘blocked’ people to be free of debt slavery, and to prevent predatory lending,” Bernardic said.

In March, the ruling centre-right coalition led by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) had also announced measures to help people with their bank accounts frozen due to debts.

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