Croatia: government backs down on retirement age increase amid trade union opposition

Yesterday, on 19 September, Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenkovic announced that his government would lower the retirement age back to 65, having planned to increase this to 67 as part of a pension reform. The decision to change tack comes after a petition dubbed “67 is too much”, which demanded a referendum on the matter, gathered more than 750,000 signatures in the spring of 2019 (see article n°11177). The prime minister says the move showed “that we listen to what our citizens tell us”. He added, however, that since many do want to “carry on working beyond the age of 65”, the government “will make it possible in a revised law proposal”. As a reminder, in December 2018 the Croatian parliament approved the government bill to raise the retirement age to 67 from 2033 and to reduce the pensions of those who stop working before that age.