The interview was conducted at government headquarters and was published on the government's Facebook page. "Your task is to exert constant pressure on the government and point your finger at things that restrain you and are not good," the PM said in the interview.
Milanovic said he would like the government to have more say in how many engineers would be educated in Croatia every year, but added that such things fell within the authority of universities.
"I would like the government to have more direct influence because it provides money. It would be good if we could say we need 1,000 engineers, but not more than 100, 200 or 50 professors of literature or history. You can't have an academy without humanities, but there are priorities, and right now technical knowledge is our priority," he added.
Milanovic believes that the Youth Guarantee will reduce the number of young unemployed people. He said that over 6,000 young people had been hired this year thanks to tax benefits, because employers were exempt from paying contributions over the next five years.
The PM said it was not possible to stop the trend of young educated people leaving the country to work abroad, but stressed that he was confident that most would stay in Croatia. "That's simply something that cannot be stopped and people are mistaken if they think that this can be done with an administrative measure. People will leave and return, it's freedom of movement. There's no way for me to ban someone from moving to Austria as soon as they have graduated in medicine in Croatia. But I'm confident that most people will stay."
(Hina) vm