Romanian workers at Rijeka oil refinery stage protest, demanding wages

This was confirmed by attorney Marko Hrstic, who represents the Romanian employment agency IGW Proiecte International.

The Romanians, who work for the Romanian company JCR Christof Services, protested for the first time on Monday.

Today they reiterated they were brought into a difficult situation by the Graz-based Christof Industries Global, which is financially in trouble, and its Romanian subsidiary JCR Christof Services.

They will not return to Romania without their wages and will continue to protest, they said.

Hrstic said many subcontractors were in a difficult situation due to the Graz-based company's financial difficulties. IGW, he added, is "facing bankruptcy" and has paid some wages from its own funds, but owes two more.

IGW last week notified the refinery's owner, Croatian energy company INA, and the main contractor, the Rome-based Kinetics Technology, asking them to urgently solve the problem.

INA said on Monday it was in no way responsible for solving the problem, that it was meeting its financial obligations to the main contractor, and that it expected the situation to be solved as soon as possible.