Independent Trade Unions protest the proposed pension reform

The gathering was dubbed “Working people into the ground will not reform the pension system, or Croatia in the 2030s: The young abroad, and the rest working themselves into the ground.”

One of the main reasons for their opposition to the reform is the proposed raising of the retirement age from the current 65 for men and 62 for women, to 67.

The head of the NHS, Kresimir Sever, said that working until the age of 67 was unsustainable in Croatia, considering that average life-expectancy of Croatian citizens (77) is shorter than in the EU (79).

Young people have realised that they did not have a future in Croatia, and are leaving as a consequence of poor policies by the current and former governments. That problem will not be solved by importing labour force, he said.

“We say no to the raising of the retirement age, and no to stricter penalties (for early retirement). Croatian workers who retire early are permanently penalised, to the amount of 20 percent of the pension (they would normally get). They (the government) say: we must discourage people from retiring early. They did not retire on their own volition,” Sever said, and added that the solution for the issues in the pension system was in pay increases and job security.

As Vecernji List daily reported, many crucial details of the proposed reform are still unknown, including what exactly the stricter penalties for early retirement would be, and whether the age of retirement would be raised to 67 for both genders by 2030.

There are over 1.2 million pensioners in Croatia, with as many as one in three above the age of 65 at risk of poverty.

The reform is expected to be passed in December 2018.

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