Trade union leaders said on Monday that they could not manage to find any common ground with the government in the talks on the proposed pension reform, and announced that unions would continue to prepare for a protest rally.

“We didn’t find common ground, and there’s no doubt that the protest would take place, having in mind the minister’s and the government’s current stance,” the leader of the major union alliance SSSH, Mladen Novosel said after a closed-door meeting with Labour Minister Marko Pavic on Monday.

“The minister had publicly invited us for talks because he wanted to discuss matters that he didn’t want to talk about last week,” Kresimir Sever of the independent unions alliance, NHS, said.

Last week, leaders of major union alliances walked out of a meeting with minister Pavic and employer’s association about the upcoming pension reform after spending less than an hour at the table.

They said that the draft of the reform was presented as a fait accompli, and that they were told that there was no room for negotiations on either the proposed raising of retirement age to 67, or the penalisation of early retirements.

“Today was the first opportunity for us to present our stances, and to explain why we can’t accept the minister’s ideas. Minister Pavic said that he would present our demands to the government and that he would inform us if they decide to recommend continuation of talks,” Sever said.

However, Sever said the protest against the government’s reform, announced by unions last week, would take place regardless, and that the exact date of the rally would be known later this week.

“The key thing here is that whereas nobody wanted to talk to us last week, now we sat together and talked and they said they were willing to continue negotiating. We have our minimum. If the talks go below that level, we have nothing to talk about with the minister, but we have to give them a chance to consider what we discussed today,” Sever said, and added that “on Wednesday we will know the exact date of the protest”.

“Our impression during today’s discussion was that the labour ministry and this government are changing the pension law not to secure the future of Croatian pensioners, their social status, and the betterment of their lives going forward, but because of obligations towards the European Commission, and that’s what we think is not good. We insisted today on beginning sensible talks, not by using projections and statistics, but real life and conditions in which Croatians are working today,” Novosel said.

Labour Minister Marko Pavic said that during the four-hour-long talks, the unions had outlined a proposal that changes the concept on the pension reform, adding that the government is prepared to come up with a compromised proposal and that the talks would continue.

“After four hours of negotiations, I can say that I am satisfied, that the talks were very constructive,” Pavic told reporters, noting that the unions had presented the proposal that changes the concept of how the pension system could be conducted.

“We presented a certain compromise proposal but I don’t want to go into detail because it was agreed that we would meet again,” Pavic told reporters.

“Pension allowances are not in doubt. Pensions can only rise, and the government insists that all citizens have the option to choose whether they want to transfer from the 2nd pension pillar to the 1st pillar – and that is the essence of the pension reform,” Pavic said.

Pensions have increased by a record 2.75 percent in the last adjustment, and 6.3 percent during this government’s term, Pavic said, adding that the reform envisions that all pensioners would now be allowed to work up to four hours a day while retaining their pension.

“The current proposal of the pension reform will be put up for public debate and amendments can be made if agreed to prior to tabling the bill to parliament, which is expected in a month’s time,” he said.       

He added that the government was prepared to come up with a compromise proposal. “We presented a certain package which we consider to be a compromise. The unions presented their package of proposals which changes the concept of retirement age at 67 and of early retirement,” Pavic added.

He said that bilateral talks were already held with employers last week.

“They had four demands, we adopted three, and the fourth will be resolve with the 27 percent additional payment. As such, we have practically fulfilled everything that employers had asked for, Pavic concluded.”

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