The president of the new parliamentary party, the Democrats, criticised Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Labour and Pension System Minister Marko Pavic over the government-sponsored set of pension laws, accusing them of forcibly taking the citizens' saving.

Mirando Mrsic, the party leader, said the PM and Minister Pavic obviously did not give up on “forcibly taking pension savings from Croatian citizens.”

“Given that they did not manage to take money from pension funds and redirect it to the state budget, they now decided to send their commissioners to supervisory boards to be able to decide through them how much money will be taken from pension savings and where the money will go,” the Democrats said in a press release on Saturday.

The government on Friday sent to parliament a package of pension reform bills.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said the objective of the pension reform was to have a balanced system with higher pensions and prosperity for future generations, saying that the government had found optimal solutions.