The purpose of the document, whose drafting began last September, is offer basic measures for countering poverty and social exclusion.
Experts from all relevant ministries, scientific institutions and representatives of nongovernmental organisations on Tuesday resumed working on the document within a conference which the Croatian Labour and Social Welfare Ministry and the EC have organised.
A draft of the memorandum reads that costs for social protection accounted for 24 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2003 and 2004, which was by three to four percent lass than the European Union average.
From 2001 to 2004 those costs were down by almost 10 percent primarily due to lower expenditure in the sphere of pension insurance. This was a result of belated adjustment of pensions to a rise in salaries and living costs as well as of the granting of lower pensions since 1999.
Categories that are particularly exposed to higher risks of poverty are elderly citizens, notably elderly women.
The average monthly dole paid to unemployed Croatians of working age is 400 kuna (approx. 54 euros).
Two thirds of pensioners live below the subsistence level as they have the income below 1,600 kuna (approx. 216 euros).