Croatia forwards 1st draft of reform measures to EC, says Grcic

The Croatian government has forwarded a preliminary draft of measures to correct excessive macroeconomic imbalances to the European Commission, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Regional Development and EU Funds Branko Grcic.

"We have sent the first draft, a working document that refers to reforms on a broad scale in all fields and on the most part this is a continuation of what we have done over the past year, plus new measures and new ideas. We still have to prepare some fiscal measures and they are in the pipeline and will be forwarded soon too," Grcic told reporters.

In late February, the European Commission concluded for the second straight year that Croatia was experiencing excessive macroeconomic imbalances that required resolute political action and specific monitoring. Croatia is expected to produce its reform programme by the end of April. If the EC finds that Croatia's National Reform Programme does not guarantee the correction of the excessive imbalances, it will opt for activating the Excessive Imbalance Procedure for Zagreb.

The Deputy PM said that fiscal consolidation measures were currently being elaborated.

A segment of the measures are defined in the 2015 state budget and a set of additional measures is now being elaborated, he said ruling out the curtailment of salaries, social benefits or pensions.

Grcic said that it was too early to speculate on a possible date for the parliamentary elections. The deadline for holding those elections expires in February 2016.

(Hina) ms

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