NHS leader Kresimir Sever said the IMF was giving the same recommendations to African countries and Croatia. "We don't need the IMF to tell us we have high expenditure and that we should reduce the debt and activate the economy, because we know that ourselves."
Sever said the IMF's stand-by arrangements had not brought any good to any country they were signed with.
"That's an especially sensitive area because the European Union, in connection with Croatia's admission, evaluates the maturity of our economy by IMF criteria," said Sever.
He claimed that the IMF's recommendations that privatisation should be stepped up, and pensions and health costs cut were based on an old recipe. He said that more than 63 per cent of retired persons received monthly pensions below 2,000 kuna (274 euros).
Sever said trade unions found out about the measures the IMF recommended to the government from the media because their representatives had not been invited to the talks.
An IMF mission on Tuesday ended a 10-day stay in Croatia. The government is expected to make conclusions about the mission's recommendations in the next two to three weeks.
The IMF recommended taking measures to bring the budgetary deficit to 3.7 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, and to focus on pensions and their indexation, health, subsidies and state support, and privatisation.
(EUR1 = 7.3 kuna)