The draft budget shows that most citizens, who already find it hard to cover monthly expenses, will live even harder in 2013 and that the biggest cuts will be borne by those employed in the public sector, he said.
Employment will not surge, purchasing power will continue to decline and without optimism there is no economic growth, Sever added.
Croatian Employers' Association (HUP) director general Davor Majetic said the new budget would not help Croatia overcome the crisis, as it maintained the status quo. He wondered if it would be possible to execute it.
The situation is grave and improvement is possible only if the economy is kickstarted and investments are attracted, he said, adding that all citizens must work more towards solving the many problems.
Unlike the unions and the HUP, Labour Minister Mirando Mrsic believes the budget is good, saying it is realistic and will make it possible to bring order to state finances and control expenditures.
Croatia needs a social consensus that it can spend only what it earns because the public debt has reached HRK 170 billion and next year HRK 10 billion will go on interest alone, he said.
The government plans to make HRK 3 billion from the privatisation of some state companies, including about HRK 2 billion from the Croatian Postal Bank (HPB) and the Croatia Osiguranje (CO) insurance company. Unions object to their privatisation, although they say the draft budget contains too many cuts to public spending.
The HPB and CO are successful and bring money to the state, so they should not be sold, as was the case with banks and Croatian Telecom, said Sever.
(EUR 1 = HRK 7.5)