The two spoke to the press after opening the BIOCentre at the Borongaj Campus in Zagreb which is intended to facilitate research in bio-technology and to help start-up companies with ideas launch production.
This institution is evidence of how much we are trying keep creative people in Croatia or to have them return, Milanovic said, adding that the centre was headed by Croatian researchers who had returned from the best world universities. "That's a message to all those who are spreading panic as though Croatia was falling apart, as though everyone was emigrating. They are leaving and returning and soon more of them will be returning than leaving," he said, adding that his government had introduced a series of measures that have boosted youth employment.
Responding to comments by reporters that without satisfied and appropriately paid teachers who are currently striking there would not be centres like the one just opened, Milanovic said that teachers had always been modest. "Teachers' wages were always modest and are still low. Unfortunately, at the moment we can't raise them because we don't have the right to take on budget obligations."
Minister Mornar added that it was a little late for the strike as the government was now a technical government. He once again refuted that workers in the health sector had received a pay rise. He added that he would offer education workers better conditions than they were demanding, but that this could only happen next year.
He invited union leaders to talks and announced that their first meeting would be held later in the day.