The Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) and Democrats parliamentary group on Tuesday called on Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Labour Minister Josip Aladrovic to immediately increase the monthly gross minimum wage to HRK 4,394.90.

About 50,000 workers in Croatia receive the minimum wage.

The Minimum Wage Act stipulates that a decision on the minimum wage for next year has to be adopted by 31 October and yet there is no indication of that whatsoever, Democrats leader Mirando Mrsic told a press conference in Parliament.

The Democrats are of the opinion that the monthly gross minimum wage in 2020 should be HRK 4,394.90, which is about 60% of the June median wage of HRK 7,324. That would mean that the net monthly wage would be HRK 3,515, which would be an increase of 17% on the current minimum wage.

“Fifty thousand workers and their families depend on that, but unfortunately that is not Plenkovic’s or his government’s priority. He has obviously forgotten about those 50,000 workers,” Mrsic claimed.

Mrsic claims that there is room to increase the minimum wage, noting that Croatia is at the lower end of the scale in the EU when it comes to the minimum wage but also with regard to the gap between productivity and wage increases.

“That is still below the amount that would be sufficient for a normal life but we do not want to speak about this in a populist way and say that the minimum wage needs to soar to the skies and amount to €1,000,” added Mrsic, alluding to President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic’s statements that the average wage in Croatia should be HRK 7,500.

The Democrats announced that they would put forward a package of bills in an effort to regulate the wage system. The first of these would be a minimum wage bill in which they would demand that the minimum wage setting system should be clear, predictable and established in such a way that it would be clear to workers what the minimum wage would be.

(€1 = HRK 7.4)