Labour and Solidarity Party official Ivica Lovric on Wednesday urged the city authorities in Zagreb to withdraw their decision to change and phase out the scheme for stay-at-home parent grants, saying that his party's legal team had prepared legal steps in the event the changes were adopted.

Lovric, speaking at a news conference outside the City Hall, said that the plans by the new city administration to abolish the stay-at-home parent grants and reduce allowances for layettes for newborn babies were shocking.

He said that the previous city administration had designed and adopted those demographic measures six years ago following the recommendations of an expert team and that the measures were based on scientific facts.

Lovric, whose party was in power in Zagreb before the May local election, accused the current mayor Tomislav Tomasevic of undermining the most vulnerable groups.

In the event the changes are adopted by the Zagreb City Assembly, the legal team of the Labour and Solidarity Party has already prepared legal steps to contest these changes, Lovric said.

He said that any people who may be affected by the changes can contact the party’s legal team for free legal advice.

Demography expert Stjepan Sterc said it was not true that the measures failed to produce the expected results. Since their adoption, there has been a 30% rise in the number of families with three children, and such a rise has not been recorded in the last two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he noted