Demekis, like officials of the World Bank a day before, assessed that the budgetary spending on pensions in Croatia was too high and some long-term changes were necessary in this field.
The Croatian pension insurance system, together with public health and social welfare, is the biggest generator of the budgetary deficit, and the funds allocated for the said purposes are twice as high as in the European Union in relation to the country's economic possibilities, IMF experts said adding that they would again meet with HSU leaders in early December.
Pensioners in Croatia are an important segment and their law-based requests will have important economic consequences. The HSU with its three parliamentary deputies can also have an effect on the national policy, Demekis said after the meeting.
He went on to say that the IMF was not going to and could not impose any solutions on the Croatian government, but it could, in line with the stand-by arrangement, point out some general macroeconomic limits within which the state budget could move.
The HSU leader, Vladimir Jordan, said they had informed the IMF of the difficult financial position of this category of the population. He added that "there was mutual understanding but little agreement" on the issue of adjusting pensions to the rise in salaries.
Later in the day, Jordan also announced that the HSU would demand an urgent session with Prime Minister Sanader as his government, he added, had failed to compile in due time a list of assets that would go into the fund for the compensation of retirees.