Croatia to restore retirement age to 65 years

The move comes after on Monday the leaders of the three trade unions forming the '67 is too much' initiative asked parliament to call a referendum on the pension reform and threatened with street protests if their demands were not met. The initiative had collected more than 700,000 signatures necessary for calling a referendum in Croatia.

"We will accept the entire proposals of the referendum initiative and will amend the pension insurance law accordingly," Plenkovic said in a government press release on Thursday.

The government will also propose changes to the labour law, allowing those who wish to remain on the labour market after the age of 65 to be able to do so, Plenkovic said.

The increase of the retirement age to 67 received a parliament approval in December 2018 with Croatia aiming to reform its pension system in order to tackle the problem of population aging. The planned reform envisaged an increase to 67 for both men and women as of 2033.