The opposition on Monday called the five amendments worth 11 million kuna to the draft 2022 state budget which the government accepted from the opposition, "peanuts" announcing that they will not vote for it and that they will demand a property tax.

Sandra Bencic of the Green-Left Bloc said their 4 million kuna amendment that the government accepted was really important to them as it raised funds for the housing of women victims of domestic violence from the envisaged 625,000 kuna.

She said their amendment on the establishment of a helicopter emergency medical service was also really important, adding that for the price of one plane, helicopters could have been available in almost all of Croatia.

The Green-Left Bloc also submitted amendments concerning healthcare, social rights and higher amounts for the green transition, Bencic said, adding that “it’s really pathetic of this government” to accept only nine amendments out of the 745 submitted, including four from the majority.

The government accepted an amendment by Boska Ban-Vlahek of the Social Democratic Party to increase funds for the Cakovec Education Centre by 6 million kuna.

Sinisa Hajdas-Doncic (SDP) said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic did not have even the minimum consensus on the development of Croatian society, from energy poverty to functionally merging municipalities and towns as announced in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

“In economics, five out of 475 amendments worth 11 million kuna is peanuts,” he added.

Next year we will insist on a property tax because it is extremely unjust, Hajdaš Dončić said, that a person with three, four or five properties, like banks and corporations, pays nothing, while the average citizen has their work taxed and pays one of the highest VAT rates in Europe.

Marin Lerotić of the Istrian Democratic Party said the government accepted one of their amendments, just as it did last year, but added that there was a big difference between what was accepted and what was realised in the end.

Last year they accepted our amendment to rehabilitate the police station building in Poreč but the project has not been realised, he said. We don’t expect this one, for the rehabilitation of the Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč, to be either, and we think this is all just for show, he added.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)