The Croatian Pension Insurance Agency should take charge of 21,521 pensioners in order to ensure them decent lives and prevent them from being discriminated against by pension funds in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia-Montenegro, trade union leader Ivan Nahtigal said at a press conference in Zagreb.
Pensioners who earned their pension in Serbia-Montenegro receive an average monthly pension allowance of 915 kuna, those who earned it in what is now the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina 788 kuna, and those from Republika Srpska only 593 kuna.
Pension allowances in Croatia are twice higher than those in Serbia-Montenegro, 2.3 times higher than in the Bosnian Federation and three times higher than in the Bosnian Serb entity.
The average monthly pension allowance in Croatia is 1,800 kuna, which is slightly above the poverty line of 1,600 kuna.
Nahtigal said that Croatia shared the responsibility for the situation because it did not protect its citizens.
The trade union has agreed with the Croatian Pensioners' Party (HSU) that the HSU would forward the proposal to the government in accordance with a cooperation agreement signed by the HSU and the ruling HDZ party after the 2003 parliamentary elections.
(1 euro = 7.5 kuna)