"I don't think this issue would be solved by a referendum. It failed in Slovenia, where the referendum decision banning work on Sundays was overturned by the constitutional court," Vukelic told reporters at the Croatian Chamber of the Economy (HGK) during an international conference on work on Sundays.
"It's a complicated issue that should primarily be solved by the interested parties, the trade unions and the employers," Vukelic said.
The Croatian government's new bill on commerce designates Sunday as a non-working day, with exceptions including petrol stations, newspaper kiosks, bakeries and similar businesses. However, shops would be allowed to be open on Sundays from 08.00 to 13.00 during five months of the year, namely from June through September and in December, because Croatia is a tourist country.
The trade union of employees in the commercial sector is still unhappy with the proposed solution. Its leader, Ana Knezevic, insisted that only shops in towns along the Adriatic coast should be allowed to stay open on Sundays and only during the tourist season.
"Of 60,000 shop assistants in Croatia, 40,000 work every Sunday and on most holidays, and 90 per cent of them are not paid for it, which is in contravention of the Labour Act," Knezevic said, adding that there were not enough inspections and that violations most often fell under the statute of limitations.
HGK president Nadan Vidosevic said that the problem would be easier to deal with if laws were respected. "We should respect our laws on a 40-hour working week and not more than 10 hours' overtime weekly, and we should pay the workers," he said.
A survey conducted by the GfK agency in December showed that 15 per cent of respondents wanted to see all shops in Croatia open on Sundays, 29 per cent said that only designated shops should remain open in given neighbourhoods, 40 per cent insisted that all shops should be closed on Sundays, while 16 per cent were undecided.