Positive economic trends on Croatia's labour market are continuing, with increase in employment and wages, the central bank's governor, Boris Vujcic, said while presenting his report on monetary policy in 2018-19 to Parliament on Wednesday.

“We also saw increased personal spending which led to GDP growth of 3.1 percent, while the positive effects on exports after Croatia’s accession to the EU decreased, as expected,” Vujcic said.

He added that the central bank is pursuing an expansionary monetary policy, also focusing on securing liquidity on the capital market and maintaining exchange rate stability. Interest rates have dropped to record lows, while international reserves are at their historically highest levels.

“Croatia is a highly ‘euroised’ country, and the adoption of the euro would have multiple benefits for the country,” Vujcic said.

MP Marin Skribola of the populist Independent List of Youths (NLM) which only has one seat in the 151-seat parliament asked Vujcic what had been done about the “attempt by RBA bank to exert pressure on the Constitutional Court in connection with the court case concerning CHF-denominated loans.”

Skibola was referring to a job ad last month in which Austria’s Raiffeisen bank openly said it was looking for a PR agency to put pressure on Croatia’s Constitutional Court regarding the ongoing lawsuits over Swiss franc-denominated loans. The ad had stirred considerable controversy in Croatia and even led to the resignation of the bank’s CEO in Croatia, Michael Müller.

Adding that he is suspecting that other banks might have tried to do the same, Skibola accused the central bank of siding with the interests of banks rather than Croatian people, and warned that he would be closely following what central bank would do in that regard.

Vujcic responded by saying that the matter of RBA’s ad was being looked into, and that after the investigation is over, the central bank would “respond accordingly.”