Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday that a solution for making Croatia's shipbuilding industry viable would be sought in the coming days, and that the government would also continue pursuing its policy of fiscal consolidation and public debt reduction.

At the start of his cabinet’s meeting on Thursday Plenkovic said that the recent government-secured payment of delayed salaries to employees at the Uljanik Group was a “message of solidarity”.

The workers at the two troubled shipyards owned by the group – Pula’s Uljanik and Rijeka’s 3. Maj – had been on strike for eight days over delayed wages. Although the strike ended on Friday, orders for four ships were cancelled this week, possibly forcing the government to pay €70 million for activated guarantees.

In addition, Economy Minister Darko Horvat said on Wednesday that the first, unofficial, reply from the European Commission on whether Brussels would approve the proposed restructuring plan for the troubled Uljanik shipyard was expected on Friday, and that the government might spend up to €352 million if the plan gets okayed.

Plenkovic said that on Friday, government officials are expected to meet with EU Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, in Zagreb, and that next week his cabinet would also hold a meeting in the city of Pula to discussions problems facing the nation’s shipbuilding industry, primarily the difficulties at the Pula-based Uljanik Group.

“At the same time, we will continue to adhere to our plan, which includes fiscal consolidation, public debt reduction, and maintaining the stability of public finances, as well as positive trends – all of which help our efforts to have Croatia’s credit rating raised to investment-level,” Plenkovic said, adding that the latest statistics about public debts are positive.

Croatia’s public debt totalled 278.9 billion kuna (€37.6 billion) at the end of May 2018, almost the same as the previous month, while compared with May 2017 it fell by 1.5 percent or 4.2 billion kuna (€566 million), according to data from the central bank.

According to data published by Eurostat in July, Croatia’s public debt-to-GDP ratio was 76.2 percent at the end of the first quarter of this year, or 6.4 percentage points lower than at the same time last year.

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