Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Monday that there is "no chance" that vaccination against Covid-19 would be made mandatory, and that there were "no constitutional nor legal obstacles to making job-retention payments conditional on workers' vaccination," state agency Hina reported.

“What is essential is to encourage people to get vaccinated. We are a tourist country and a country which wants to stand behind the message ‘Safe stay in Croatia’,” Plenkovic told the press after a meeting of his HDZ party’s presidency, national council and parliamentary group on Monday in Zagreb.

We can boost our own credibility if we say that ‘such and such a percentage of citizens has been vaccinated’, he added.

Plenkovic said he was pleased with an increase in the number of people who received the first dose, adding that talks on vaccination would continue this week with the social partners.

Asked about tomorrow’s extraordinary meeting of the national association of the hospitality sector, which says the situation is difficult and that only stopgap measures have been taken, he reiterated that the government had pursued a job-retention policy in an unprecedented crisis.

“If we continue to behave smartly, rationally and responsibly during the tourist season, the third quarter will be much better than last year, the tourist season will bring new revenues and the fourth quarter will be good. I’m sure that hoteliers and bar and restaurant owners play an important role in that process.”

Plenkovic said the government’s measures had been viable, consistent, continuous and generous. “Calling them stopgap measures is minimising an effort that made it possible for them to weather this crisis in such unenviable conditions when social contact was… the most problematic thing.”

He also said that the HDZ would hold party elections “from September to December.”