Unions and employers said at Monday's meeting of the Economic and Social Council (GSV) that they were pleased with the draft 2021-23 national recovery and resilience plan, calling it "encouraging."

Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, told reporters after the meeting that the GSV was presented with a “summary of the draft plan,” on which “all departments had been working on for eight months now.”

“It’s a document containing reforms and investments totalling €6.3 billion, which is part of the Next Generation EU program. Croatia is one of the member countries that received more than the others,” Croatian state agency Hina quoted Plenkovic as saying.

Plenkovic said the GSV was presented with the “outlines” of the national recovery and resilience plan, and that the government would “endorse the information on it” on Thursday and then present the plan to the public.

The government wants to finish the plan by the end of April, when it needs to be submitted to the European Commission for approval.

“That (the submission) will be followed by the payment of an advance, of 13 percent,” Plenkovic said, adding that “we should receive 6.1 billion kuna (€805 million) in August or September, to be followed by the realization of projects through reforms.”

He said some of the eligibility criteria for EU funding from the program includes that 37 percent of all applications must “contribute to the green transition” – probably referring to renewable energy sources – and 20 percent to the economy’s digital transition.

The criteria also includes projects that “do not cause significant damage in terms of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, water protection, and the circular economy.”

“In the next ten years Croatia will have €6.3 billion in grants at its disposal, then almost €13 billion in the EU’s new multi-annual financial framework, another €3.6 billion in Next Generation EU loans, most probably about €1 billion for earthquake recovery, plus almost €1 billion from ReactEU and the Just Transition Fund,” Plenkovic said.

Employers and unions say the document is encouraging

Unionist Vilim Ribic said Plenkovic’s arrival at the GSV meeting constituted a “good approach to social dialogue.”

“A truly spectacular amount of money is expected,” he said, adding that unions were pleased that “the education sector has received a very relevant percentage of the funds, about 15 percent.”

Ribic said the unionists had “underlined the link” between those funds and “Croatia’s prospects in terms of emigration and economic transformation,” adding that the unions had “insisted on the social aspect” and on “reducing inequalities in society.” No concrete examples of this were given.

Head of the largest employers’ association HUP, Mihael Furjan, said the national recovery and resilience plan summary “looks encouraging” and that its presentation marked the “beginning of formal consultations with social partners.”

“HUP is looking forward to a public consultation. We’ll try, with our experience, knowledge, expertise, to help the government, so that the final version of the document looks as good as possible in the interest of the Croatian economy,” Furjan said, adding that it was “very important” that employers and unions agreed throughout “most of the discussion.”