Croatian Companies Argue Against EU-Backed Wage Boost

Croatian companies and employers have complained that the newly-agreed EU directive seeking to equalise wages for workers posted to other countries across the Union will damage their business and ultimately result in job cuts.

"Of course this change in the directive doesn't suit us," said Maja Kruljac, head of the legal and human resources department at Zagreb Montaza, one of the biggest construction companies in the country, which sends people to work in other EU states.

"Our [business] results will be definitely worse, and it remains a question if there will be any benefit to us doing business abroad, which will as a consequence negatively affect income to the state budget, in terms of the taxes and workers' benefits we pay to the state for these posted workers," Kruljac said.

Late on Monday, after lengthy negotiations, labour ministers from EU member states decided to revise the EU's directive from 1996 to say that companies that send their workers to work abroad temporarily will have to pay them according to conditions in the country in which they will work.

The directive will directly affect companies from EU states where wages are lower and which send their workers to work in states with higher average wages. The directive only excludes transport workers, such as lorry drivers.

The EU Commission welcomed the proposal on Tuesday, calling  on the European Parliament and the EU Council to to move forward and "finalise the agreement and formally adopt the proposal".

According to Eurostat's figures for 2015, published in September, there were over two million workers posted to other countries in the EU.

In Croatia, there were around 39,000 such workers in 2015, with 66 per cent of them working in Germany, mostly in...