“I condemn any violent act against everyone and thus I condemn attacks against foreign workers.”

Foreign workers offset the shortage of local workers in the segment of the labour market in which we cannot provide enough workers, he said.

An estimated 120,000 foreign employees are currently in Croatia, they are primarily in the construction sector, he told a news conference in Government House.

Plenkovic emphasised the contribution of foreign workers to the construction and hospitality sectors.

Croatia is adopting the Foreigners’ Act to regulate the employment of foreigners and to enable them to have decent and fair pay and help them to have their dignity concerning their accommodation and functioning in a completely different culture and society in comparison to their countries of origin, he said.

Four young men, including three underage boys, were arrested by the local police on late Friday  evening after they assaulted a foreign worker in Split’s neighbourhood of Mertojak where he was delivering goods, the police in this second biggest Croatian town reported on Saturday morning. Another delivery man, a Nepalese, sustained serious injuries, when unidentified attackers assaulted him in Bracka Ulica Street. The courier got his arm broken in the incident. Three unidentified masked men physically assaulted an Indian delivery man and inflicted light injuries on him in another incident last night in Split. The incidents prompted the local law enforcement authorities to step up patrolling through the city all night.

As for the announced protest rally of the SDP and the BUZ non-parliamentary party of pensioners, in Rijeka against poverty, Plenkovic responded that the government is conducting talks with the strongest party representing pensioners, the HSU party on a permanent basis.

We are trying the ideas presented by that party to embrace in our agenda and implement them through legislative solutions, said Plenkovic.

He recalled that a part of pensioners’ associations decided to support President Zoran Milanovic in the presidential polls.

In mid-September, the Pensioners Together Bloc (BUZ) leader Milivoj Špika said that the BUZ would support Milanovic’s bid for reelection.

Plenkovic said today that the protest in Rijeka should be placed in the current political framework.