Following its meeting in Pozega on Friday, the leadership of the UDVDR association, headed by Djuro Decak, decided to send a request to the government to reconsider its decision to cut by 10 percent so-called privileged pensions exceeding HRK 3,500.
Decak warned at a news conference in the eastern town of Pozega that as long as the four-percent crisis tax on incomes exceeding HRK 6,000 was in effect, the actual reduction of those pensions would be 14 percent, which would adversely affect this category of citizens.
Asked about the possibility of veterans taking to the streets, Decak said that this would not pay off and that all sides should sit at the negotiating table sooner or later.
Twelve associations in Split-Dalmatia County on Friday issued a joint statement expressing opposition to the government's decision to reduce the material rights of Homeland Defence War veterans and victims.
They also criticised the abolishment of free additional health insurance and other acquired rights of this category.
The associations insist on no longer using the term "privileged" for pensions granted to war veterans and families whose members were killed in the war.
The Bojovnik association on Thursday staged a protest rally in Rijeka against the 10-percent reduction of veterans' pensions.
In late May, the parliamentary War Veterans Committee endorsed by majority vote a bill on a 10 per cent reduction of pensions acquired under special regulations for 55,782 veterans and members of Homeland War victims' families of the 68,742 recipients of those pensions. Pensions will also be cut for 7,260 participants in the World War Two People's Liberation Struggle and 2,560 members of the WW2 Croatian Home Guard.
An average Homeland War veteran's pension amounts to HRK 5,184.
The reduction will be applied to pensions exceeding HRK 3,500.
The bill of amendments proposes reducing as of July 1 pensions acquired under special regulations if they exceed HRK 3,500, including those of MPs and former government members. The bill does not refer to pensions of totally disabled war veterans, miners in the Tupljak mines and workers exposed to asbestos.