ZAGREB, Sept 28 (Hina) - By giving a vote of confidence in the new justice and European integration ministers, the Croatian parliament on Friday ended its first autumn session at which it adopted a set of important laws introducing
significant changes in the sphere of social entitlements and creating conditions for a more systematic fight against corruption and organised crime. The adoption of a dozen restrictive laws from a package of bills on social entitlements, of which most go into force on October 1, will enable the state to make savings estimated at 700 million kuna. Under the new laws, maternity leave with adequate childbirth allowance will last one year. Another change is that childbirth allowances for each child will be granted to unemployed mothers, pupils and students. The laws cancel the right to childbirth allowance from the child's first to third year of age for employed mothers with twins
ZAGREB, Sept 28 (Hina) - By giving a vote of confidence in the new
justice and European integration ministers, the Croatian
parliament on Friday ended its first autumn session at which it
adopted a set of important laws introducing significant changes in
the sphere of social entitlements and creating conditions for a
more systematic fight against corruption and organised crime.
The adoption of a dozen restrictive laws from a package of bills on
social entitlements, of which most go into force on October 1, will
enable the state to make savings estimated at 700 million kuna.
Under the new laws, maternity leave with adequate childbirth
allowance will last one year. Another change is that childbirth
allowances for each child will be granted to unemployed mothers,
pupils and students. The laws cancel the right to childbirth
allowance from the child's first to third year of age for employed
mothers with twins and three or more children.
The base for the calculation of disability allowances of civilian
and military war invalids has been reduced from 160 to 100% of the
budgetary base, i.e., the average monthly net salary paid in the
previous year.
Privileged pensions will decrease by eight to 20% (starting from
2,500 kuna onwards), the highest pension being limited to 9,343
kuna.
A more systematic fight against organised crime should be ensured
through the establishment of USKOK - the Office for Fighting
Corruption and Organised Crime. The Office would be part of the
State Prosecutor's Office and the law regulating its establishment
also envisages some new institutes, including the institute of key
witness.
Under the new Associations Law, associations will be established
and registered more easily than before. It will be enough to have
two partners (a total of three) to start the process of establishing
an association) with foreign nationals being allowed to
participate under the same conditions.
The first criticisms were directed this week against the new bill on
the rights of Croatian war veterans, which, in some segments, is
more restrictive than the existing one.
Whether and how much the bill will eventually be changed will be
known in some ten days, when it should be discussed in parliament
again.
At the same time, MPs will consider the final versions of the new
bills on child allowance and health insurance.
All these issues should be solved at the next parliamentary
session, which is also to tackle an agreement on the Croatia-
Slovenia border and their relations.
The next parliamentary session has been scheduled for October 10.
(hina) sb rml