The Croatian Trade Union Confederation (MHS) today reacted to the views of the World Bank regarding the rebalancing of the state budget, which were reported by some Croatian media, stating that this global financial institution is entering into issues of justice and social morality, suggesting the distribution of the burden of the crisis at the expense of labor, pensioners, and ordinary people in favor of capital.
"We are not surprised that the World Bank expresses an opinion on the economic consequences of this rebalancing, and that it enters into issues of justice and social morality, suggesting the distribution of the burden of the crisis at the expense of labor, pensioners, and ordinary people in favor of capital. The World Bank has been doing this for years in accordance with mantras that no longer resonate even in the country of its headquarters," states the statement signed by the president of the MHS Grand Council, Vilim Ribić. What is shocking, it further states, is the moment in which it does so.
"By doing so," as stated in the statement, "the World Bank is trying to influence the internal issues of Croatian society ex ante, rather than as has been the case until now ex post, as an analyst of economic events, which is desirable and acceptable even when observing those events from a narrow neoliberal concept." MHS believes that "with such intervention, the World Bank shows an open aspiration to exert pressure on politics and its decisions in an independent state." What is particularly surprising, it is emphasized in the union’s statement, is the "covert suggestion of high public spending in the Republic of Croatia." "This does not reflect reality, given that Croatian public spending is among the lowest compared to other European countries, and moreover, by increasing public spending, many countries find a way out of the crisis," it states, among other things, in the MHS statement.
