As announced, yesterday we organized a protest at St. Mark’s Square, in which 60 deminers from several demining companies participated. The reason for the protest was the failure to fulfill the conclusions of the meeting held at the Ministry of the Interior in September 2019, as well as the dismissal of seventy deminers who are now at the employment office—and at least as many who worked after retirement and are therefore not registered.
At the protest, we repeated our demands:
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To ensure continuity of work from the end of 2019 through to March 1, 2026, when Croatia is scheduled to complete the demining process.
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To increase deminers’ pensions, which currently amount to about 3,000 HRK, to 5,000 HRK.
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For the Government of the Republic of Croatia to adopt an exit strategy—specifically, to take care of deminers who, at the time demining is completed, will not meet the conditions for retirement.
We warned that the demining system could collapse if the Government and the Ministry of the Interior continue to ignore our demands. Many deminers are in a difficult existential situation due to the dismissals; in many families, only the father worked while the mother cared for the children during his time in the field. In some cases, both spouses were fired. Younger deminers are worried about their future employment and find it absurd that the state educates people only to then abandon them. Once the majority leave the system, it will be difficult for them to return, leaving an insufficient number of experienced workers to complete the demining process.
Even yesterday, the ruling parties showed no interest in solving the problem Prime Minister Plenković did not even bother to come out and listen to our demands. We lobbied three groups of Deputies: in the Left-Green Coalition club, we met with Katarina Peović the SDP club was represented by Arsen Bauk, and the Homeland Movement club by Milan Vrkljan. They expressed varying degrees of understanding and promised to attempt to reach a solution by opening discussions during Parliamentary sessions. Additionally, the SDP representative announced the convening of the Committee on Internal Policy and National Security.
At MUP, we met with Assistant Minister Damir Trut and Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović. During the meeting, it became clear that the Minister did not understand the problem, as he was convinced he had secured enough funds—”more than any year so far”—and that he was solving everything. He does not understand that there is a shortage of demining projects (square meters), and we attempted to point out that “more money” does not necessarily mean “enough.” We demanded that 45 million square meters per year be secured so that everyone has a job and laid-off deminers can return to work. Finally, a meeting was agreed upon to be held within two weeks, involving representatives of the Ministry of the Interior, Novi sindikat, deminers, and employers, to explain to the Minister that the lack of work is not the employers’ fault.
Since our demands have not been met, we remain on standby. If the meeting is not held within the agreed deadline, or if there are more cancellations of contracts, we will return to St. Mark’s Square in large numbers and much louder than yesterday!
