The Pensioners Together platform rejects the proposed changes to the Maintenance Act. There is a risk that the number of grandparents whose assets are seized in order to collect maintenance will increase, explained the platform's candidates for the European elections on 9 June on Monday.

One of them, Vesna Horvat, president of the Karlovac County branch of the Pensioners’ Party, said that according to the draft maintenance law, both the parent not living with the child and the grandparents are liable for maintenance, although it was expected that the new law would not include grandparents.

The state should be able to exert more pressure to ensure the payment of maintenance instead of simply seizing part of a person’s pension, Horvat said.

“The danger exists as long as there is the legal possibility”

In other European countries, parents who evade paying maintenance face various sanctions. In Germany, for example, they cannot register a car, she said.

The number of grandparents whose pensions have been seized to collect maintenance claims is not large because the case law is no longer as strict as it was a few years ago, Horvat said.

“There are cases where grandparents have had to pay €200 a month for a dozen years. The courts no longer advise mothers to sue their grandparents, but the danger exists as long as there is the legal possibility,” said Horvat.

According to the constitution, parents have a duty to raise, care for and educate their children. It is only under the Family Act that grandparents are obliged to care for the minor if the parent liable for maintenance does not fulfil their obligations.