Management of the indebted Uljanik shipbuilding group notified the Zagreb Stock Exchange on Wednesday that the company's bank account is frozen again, while a strike at the Pula-based Uljanik dock continued into its second week.

Uljanik’s bank account had been blocked on August 29-30, then on September 3-13, and again on October 2-24.

The news comes after company CEO, Gianni Rossanda, tendered his resignation on Tuesday. The head of the striking committee, unionist Boris Cerovac, said that the new supervisory board held talks with seven candidates for the position.

The strike at the group, over unpaid wages for September, which were due on October 15, is now in its second week. The private-owned Uljanik group employs more than 4,000 workers at two major shipyards – the eponymous Uljanik based in Pula, and 3. Maj at the port city of Rijeka.

On Tuesday, Economy Minister Darko Horvat said that Uljanik management notified the minmistry that they would finally send a new restructuring plan to the government within 10 days or so, with the ministry’s analysis of the plan taking another 3-4 days.

The analysis, Horvat added, is necessary so that the plan would get green-lighted by the European Commission which is concerned that state aid that the plan proposes does not violate EU competition rules. The original plan, send to Brussels in July, had received 75 objections.

According to media reports, the estimated cost of the management’s revised plan to restructure and save the Pula-based Uljanik dock now rose to 5.27 billion kuna (€710 million), up from the original 4.38 billion (€590 million), and proposes that Uljanik co-finances the plan with 2.63 billion kuna (€354 million), with the rest paid for by the government.

The plan includes re-purposing some of the seaside plots of land in Pula, currently used by the dock, to house tourist facilities and a marina.

The management said they currently have no funds to finance day-to-day business, so they proposed that the government also funds the company’s operations for the initial 20 months after the restructuring plan is implemented.

This would cost the government another 581 million kuna (€78 million) in working capital for first six months, and another 863 million kuna (€116 million) to cover operation costs over the first 11 months. In addition, the company management wants the government to spend another 89 million kuna (€12 million) by mid-2019, used to pay suppliers and sub-contractors.

(€1 = 7.42 kuna)

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