At a time when the number of our fellow citizens who are out of work and not receiving wages is rapidly increasing, when the threat of flooding still plagues a large number of families, and when anxiety and fear of layoffs from work fill the souls of many who are employed, this Commission wishes to present the public with its modest contribution to the Croatian and European discussion on the need for consensus regarding fundamental national interests and genuine international solidarity.

1. Public Interest and Structural Reforms. Every day, especially from financial but also political circles in our country and Europe, the need for structural reforms in Croatia and many other countries is heard. We do not want to deny the need for rational operations and the equitable use of public funds in countries where the previous totalitarian regimes eliminated numerous essential criteria of good management and governance. However, we also cannot help seeing that “structural reforms” almost exclusively favor the private interests of bankers, speculators and traders, to the detriment of public interest, especially employee rights. These reforms are no longer only demanded from former communist states but also from democratic countries, which in a period of “30 glorious years” (1950–1980) had established quite an equitable balance in respect to labor and capital. “Structural reforms” boil down to “increasing the flexibility” of “markets” and the cost of labor, i.e., facilitating layoffs and pay cuts, as well as a permanent reduction in the activity of the welfare state, all under the pretext of entrepreneurial freedom and growth requirements.These reforms favor private interests over public interest, precisely at a time when greedy bankers and traders have led a good part of the world into crisis, recession, unemployment and debt bondage.

2. The Dignity of Citizens and the Power of Parties. In Croatia today, more than 380,000 of our fellow citizens who want and need to work are unemployed, and the bank accounts of over 300,000 persons have been frozen. Among the unemployed are a vast number of young and educated persons who are losing hope that they will be able to support themselves from their work and start a family. In our country, unfortunately, the belief prevails that education is merely an “expense” and not a good and fair investment for the future. It seems that people do not want to see that without today’s young people, our country will only be impoverished, deteriorated and then desolate.
Two decades ago, when Croatia was painfully hoisting itself up from the suffering inflicted by war, its outlook was not anywhere as bleak as it is today, especially not in comparison with other post-communist countries. Responsibility for the current situation is borne, indeed to varying degrees, by all the executive and legislative authorities, who “transformed,” “indebted” and “liberalized” Croatia from its few resources. Croatia is now sick and impoverished by the constant staffing of the party leaders because with each change in government, hundreds of people are replaced and responsible positions are often taken by inexperienced, ignorant and selfish people who only see their own interests. Therefore, it is not surprising that some public employees “without any qualms whatsoever” throw thousands of workers and their families into the street, while they themselves have done nothing to reform and improve public services and public enterprises, educate public managers or protect public administration and public companies from everyday politics and party interests.
It is not true, as claimed by neoliberal Croatian politicians, that every state is a bad entrepreneur. This thesis is refuted by the experiences of European states in which the public sector operates successfully on the market. Moreover, in our country it seems that people do not know that the government and public boards must be protectors of the public interest and general good, and that this interest and public good must have priority over private interests and all “legitimate” greed. This must be known, believed and cultivated!

3. The Welfare State and Workers’ Rights. According to the first article of the Croatian Constitution, Croatia is a “welfare state” but in practice increasingly less so, not only due to external pressures from globalization institutions (IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization etc.) but also from internal squanderers of public and common goods. Croatia is also becoming increasingly less of a welfare state because the state machinery is scattered among a multitude of agencies (Anglo-Saxon type) and “independent” institutions, which again favors the multiplication of cushy jobs, i.e., party clientelism instead of the rights of citizens.
In the gloomy atmosphere of the deterioration of welfare assistance and solidarity with the most vulnerable and least protected, a rare bright spot is the abandonment by the Croatian Government of the proposed Temporary Jobs Act, which was supposed to regulate menial jobs of limited duration. It is desirable that abandonment of this proposal should not be merely tactical and temporary but permanent. European experiences indicate that such jobs often serve to eliminate more permanent ones, hinder the education and advancement of workers, and increase the number of the working poor. Therefore, it is not surprising that Slovenian citizens rejected the adoption of such a lawin a referendum.
Of much greater concern is the proposed Labor Act, which greatly reduces employee rights through the liberalization of the “labor market” i.e., makes it easy to lay off workers, who in this way are the first and only ones to bear the risk of market trends as well as poor company management. This proposal would allow a significant increase in overtime work and, in general, leave it to employers to regulate the working hours of their employees however they wish. If such regulations are adopted, not only employees and their health will suffer but also their families, for whom it will become even more difficult to find time to be together. These regulations would also be very detrimental to civil and every other public and individual engagement by employees. This legislative proposal, moreover, does not protect Sunday as a day of mandatory rest and an opportunity for families to be together, as well as engagement by working people in civil and other free activities.
In the proposed Labor Act, there is mention of ill-fated “agencies” for temporary employment, which are given great freedom for the legal trading of employees and lowering wages,thereby greatly reducing the rights of collective bargaining, contracting and, in general, the rights of workers from these contracts. Moreover, this proposed legislation substantially diminishes the rights of unions, which would be a great setback to civilization, human rights and labor freedom.The Commission notes that the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, beginning with the encyclical Rerumnovarumissued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, arose from the need to protect workers’ rights, particularly unionizing, bargaining and safeguarding their rights, including the right to strike. Therefore, it is incomprehensible and unacceptable for the role of unions to be diminished and marginalized, thereby creating the illusion of an increased role for workers’ councils, especially in collective layoffs. Workers’ councils, however, are not independent of employers. They are not a party in collective bargaining or negotiations, and do not have the right to strike. Therefore, it is not good, just or in accordance with the conventions of the International Labor Organization, to which Croatia is a signatory, to marginalize unions with the help of workers’ councils.

4. National Consensus on Important Issues. The nature and complexity of the difficulties Croatia is undergoing indicate that they cannot be resolved without great effort by the entire society, although not without prior consensus by the political forces regarding important issues and strategic national interests. Among others, these include labor legislation and the reform of public and state administrations; tax policy toward work, consumption, capital and financial transactions; energy policy and the battle against climate changes, as well as dealing with their consequences; and the preservation and promotion of the remaining public resources and general goods—soil, water, sea, forests—for this and future generations Among the vital questions are the safeguarding of family, demographic and natality policies because Croatia is infected with the “white plague.”
Croatia must find a consensus on these important issues. This is Croatia’s to be or not to be. Therefore, it would be good and just, with respect to civil peace and the will of the people to live together, for the political powers, both present and future, to embark on a path of cooperation on these important topics and issues, and that instead of structural sin, to begin to build large coalitions for the good of all citizens. Therefore, it is not necessary to shrink from referendums. Catholics, as well as all people of good will, should be expected to engage in such “paths of good”because time is running out in today’s ever-changing world in which all trends are accelerated.

5. Solidarity with Nations in Distress. Two decades ago, when the physical and material foundations of the Croatian nation were being threatened, there was solidarity from the Croatian diaspora but as a nation we also experienced great assistance from many people of good will throughout the world and, gradually, from countries and international organizations.
Our Commission recalls and emphasizes that it is our Christian, civil and human duty to express our genuine solidarity, not only with the needy and orphaned in our own homeland but also in the world, and to begin with our closest neighbors. These include not only Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who owing to Greater Serbian aggression but also some policies of the Republic of Croatia, are now impoverished and disenfranchised in their own homeland and, moreover, are repeatedly outvoted in the Federation, but all the citizens of these unstable countries that suffer from lawlessness, corruption, unemployment and inequality. The unjust Dayton “peace,” by which a cynical world divided Bosnia and Herzegovina and rewarded the aggressors and genocide, and merely stopped the war, should be amended as soon as possible and conditions should be ensured for the renewal of the state and society, as well as respect for the law. Likewise, it is necessary through law and the powerof public authorities to ensure all human, civil and national rightsto all the indigenous inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially the Croats who are the least protected.
Our genuine solidarity is also deserved by another European nation that is still suffering from the legacy of the totalitarian and colonial past, famine and genocide, but also from the persecution of its spiritual and intellectual elite and from the venality and violence of the corrupt government. This is the Ukrainian nation, which today is defending not only the integrity of their country but also the “European values of a free and just society, literally with their own blood,” as stated in an open letter dated January 24, 2014, by Yuri Andrukhovych, a leading Ukrainian writer, poet, essayist and translator. Due to recent events in Ukraine and based on a letter from the Major Archbishop of Kiev, SviatoslavShevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which was received by the Croatian Conference of Bishops, in which the drama of the situation is described, the Commission urges all the faithful in Croatia to pray for peace in Ukraine.
Our solidarity is also needed today by the suffering Syrian people, who for nearly three years have been shedding their blood in a terrible civil war, which has already mowed down over 130,000 victims, mostly civilians, especially children. This war also involves numerous persecuted Syrian Christians, who made up 10% of the Syrian population prior to the war but are gradually disappearing from that country, where the first Christian communities sprang up during the early travels by St. Paul to Rome.
It will be of no use if we merely express our “profound concern” due to the bloodshed these days in Kiev, as MyroslavFranovychMarynovych, Vice Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv and President of the Ukrainian Pen Club, warned in an anguished appeal. These misfortunes and tragedies require everyone—above all, the Croatian representatives in international organizations, especially the European Union—to undertake decisive and tough measures against the corrupt and criminal politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine and Syria, who are disenfranchising, persecuting and killing their fellow citizens. The European Union and democratic countries have the duty to advocate for justice and peace, not only with words but also with concrete action hic et nunc, here and now, in these unfortunate countries because tomorrow will be too late.

In Zagreb, March 5,2014

Msgr. Vlado Košić, Ph.D.
President of the Justice and Peace Commission
of the Croatian Conference of Bishops