Under the EU directive, companies in one European Union member-state that conduct their business in another member-state will have to pay their workers the same wages paid for workers in the host country.
The parliamentary committee's decision is decisive for the fate of amendments to the Posting of Workers Directive as another nine EU member-states have also rejected the proposal. That means that Croatia's negative vote could mean that the directive might get a so-called yellow card in the European Parliament and be sent back to the European Commission for further review.
The committee's chairman Gordan Jandrokovic (HDZ) considers this to be a historic decision because this will be the first time that a parliamentary decision in Croatia will have a direct impact on the EC's position.
"The EC will probably have to withdraw the directive and propose a new one or further explain this one so that all 28 member-states can give their opinion. The directive has attempted to introduce the rule that workers from one member-state going to work in another member-state have to be paid according to the norm in those developed countries. That means that if a worker from Poland, Czech Republic or Croatia goes to work in Germany, they would have to be paid the same wage as a German worker. That appears at first glance to be good and would be just, however that would impact the competitiveness of Croatian companies and those from southeast and eastern Europe that work on Western markets and our companies and workers would then not be able to work in those countries," Jandrokovic told Hina.
He noted that according to statistics, this refers to 27,000 posted workers from Croatia.