SDP member of parliament Branko Grčić stated on Thursday from Bjelovar that the growth rates from the Government’s convergence program, which projects an economic growth rate of 2.8 percent for this year, 2.7 percent for next year, and 2.5 and 2.5 percent in 2020 and 2021, are not sufficient to ensure a real increase in the standard of living for Croatian citizens and to move Croatia away from the bottom of the EU.
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– Both experts and the economic public agree that an economic growth rate of only 2.5 percent is not large enough, and this is the key problem that leads Croatia to the bottom of the EU country rankings, said Grčić at a press conference.
He warned that Croatia has utilized only 10 percent of the 10.7 billion euros available from EU funds.
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– We are approaching the halfway point of the fifth year out of a total of seven years that we are allowed to use these funds, and we have only utilized ten percent, despite all the government’s attempts to cover up this fact. Furthermore, there is not a single major project financed from the EU treasury that was not prepared or contracted by the SDP government under Prime Minister Milanović, from the construction of the Dugo Selo-Križevci railway to the Pelješac Bridge, Grčić stated.
