Economy Minister Tomislav Coric said on Friday that the legislation regulating Sunday trading "could be adopted" in 2022.

Coric told the press that the government had not jettisoned plans to regulate non-working Sundays, adding that “the initiative for the regulation of Sunday trading is somewhat different than the existing one.”

He said that the cabinet was trying to avoid any possible problems concerning the constitutionality of the future legislation. The authorities will therefore analyse and consider all the proposals, suggestions and objections.

The minister believes that the bill could be passed in the first half of 2022 and go into force after that.

The public consultation ended in August for the relevant draft bill which stipulates 16 working Sundays annually as proposed by the government. As many as 73 objections have been sent to the draft during online consultations.

In 2004 and in 2009, the Constitutional Court declared the laws regulating non-working Sundays to be against the Constitution.

The legislation nixed by the Constitutional Court in 2009 seems similar to the contents of the draft bill prepared now by the government, and it envisages a set of exemptions that will be allowed to work on each Sunday. Some of those businesses that will be entitled to work on Sundays are petrol stations, newsstands, open-air markets, retail shops in ports and at train and bus stations, family-run farms, tourist facilities and shops within religious shrines and institutions and in hospitals.

When overthrowing the law in 2009, the Constitutional Court ruled that the state must provide all businesses equal status on the market.