The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council adopted the Youth Guarantee, under which every person under 25, four months after completing their education or losing their job, would be offered a new job, further education or (re)training.
Mrsic attended the meeting as an observer. He said later that Croatia would start applying the programme on July 1, when it is scheduled to join the EU, and that it would invest a lot of money in it as well as receive a lot from the European Social Fund.
Asked by the press to comment on the International Monetary Fund's recommendation that Croatia raise the retirement age to 67, Mrsic said Croatia would apply this measure between 2020 and 2030, like other countries.
He said the matter would be discussed with the social partners in Croatia and that the IMF said nothing about cutting pensions. "They will not be cut, they are staying the same."
Speaking of Labour Act amendments, Mrsic said the law must be changed to protect workers while at the same time enabling companies to undergo restructuring more easily, so that they could respond to the market's challenges and demands.