Croatia | Today in the Parliament, the debate on the Law on Foreigners: ‘They should learn Croatian and integrate’

The topic of yesterday’s show Otvoreno was the growth in the number of foreign workers in Croatia and the question of whether this is a replacement of the population or a forced import of labor.

– It is not about replacing the population, butć it is about ‘importing’ workers for those jobs for which labor cannot be found – said Ivan Vidiš from HDZ, commenting on the fact that since the beginning of the year Croatia has issued at least 143 thousands of work permits for foreigners. He added that this is also a consequence of economic growth, which also depends on how much qualified labor we can reach.

– Now every year, more than 10 thousand Croats return to Croatia, and all this is a consequence of the increase in wages – emphasized Vidiš.

Vesna Vučemilović she said that the situation is not rosy, but “it’s not that black either”. She said that Croatia has been recording good growth rates in recent years, but she is concerned about the fact that despite liberalization of labor imports – Croatia lacks an immigration and integration strategy.

– Every worker must be trained for safe work. I would like the taxi driver to know the regulations and have a driver’s license. We must ensure safe working conditions for every worker. He must go through that training in the official language. We do not have records of how many of these people had accidents at work. And I won’t even talk about the conditions of how and where they live. Otherwise, instead of integration, we will have ghettoization – said Vučemilović.

Sandra Benčić said that the attitude towards foreign workers is reminiscent of a slave-owning relationship. She gave an example of a 100-square-meter apartment in the center of Zagreb, which housed 40 foreign workers. She added that the new law on foreigners will still set standards.

– Private companies determine which workers they need. We have a huge increase in the number of companies involved in ‘legal human trafficking’. They take people in some country, they charge for it. When a worker loses his job, he loses the possibility of residence. We demanded that people get a work permit for a specific profession. And if they get fired – they can look for a job for a certain period of time and go to another employer. It should be extended to three years, if you want to have integration – Benčić said.

She mentioned learning the Croatian language as the first step in integration. Importantly, she emphasized the prevention of ghettoization.

– We constantly talk about the consequences. The lack of labor on the market is a consequence of bad politics. A terrible number of young Croats left Croatia and we absolutely did not react well as a country – said Ivica Kukavica from the Homeland Movement. He is happy, he says, that some provisions in the new law are stricter.

– I am also glad that our minister Šipić introduced in this law – that Croats without citizenship and their descendants will not be considered foreigners, but will be able to enter the labor market equally – said Kukavica.

– Scandinavian countries are not colonial. We see what happened in Sweden with pro-liberal politics – war in the streets. Together with our partners, we will listen to the market and together we will pass the best laws. We will absolutely watch and follow the processes so that our children do not have the problems that some countries have now – said Ivica Kukavica. He added that the return of quotas is also a subject of negotiations.

– One of our important requirements regarding the Labor Law and the Law on Foreigners is the movement of the so-called aggregator. This is when someone hires you and then hires you to someone else. This is how the so-called platform workers. This dissipates responsibility and workers are far more unprotected – said Sandra Benčić. She stated that this is how Bolt works – for which a large number of workers were found to not have driver’s licenses.

Otherwise, the Croatian Parliament will today discuss the amendments to the Law on Aliens proposed by the Government, which bring a series of innovations that seek to regulate the labor market. The most important are promissory notes, employers will, namely, have to provide a new guarantee to the state for every worker from third countries who comes from migration-high-risk countries (visa countries) just in case. to waive it in the amount of one average monthly gross salary. This amount must be paid into the state budget within eight days if the foreign worker does not start work within the period according to the contract or if the contract is canceled without his fault before the end of three months of work in the Republic of Croatia. The funds will be used for the costs of the foreign worker’s return to their home country, which until now has been at the expense of the state.