Workers from Croatia's Uljanik shipyard, based in the town of Pula, will gather in front of the government headquarters on Marko’s Square in Zagreb on August 27. Workers say they want to present their case to government officials and start talks about their delayed salaries.

The Pula-based shipyard — Croatia’s largest — was reported earlier this year to be in crisis. In January, the European Commission cleared Zagreb’s plans to grant the shipyard a state guarantee for a €96mn loan, allowing Uljanik to meet its urgent liquidity needs while preparing a restructuring plan. This prevented the shipyard going out of business immediately, the EC said at the time. 

However, Zagreb has so far failed to ensure that salaries are paid on time. About 4,500 workers from Uljanik staged a strike on August 22 over late payment. They gathered in front of the dock entrance demanding that the management resign and calling for new leadership, Reuters reported.

The government has been trying to find a solution and pay salaries, but was unable to do so despite working on the issue throughout the weekend of August 25-26, according to the Minister of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts Darko Horvat.

“At this moment, we still can’t communicate surely that salaries for July are managed but we can claim surely that the government has worked intensively on finding solution over the weekend. Trust me in this moment… it is hard to communicate with the European Commission. All the headlines which showed up in media during the day, I believe they are speculative, and I would dare to say part of the creation of a strange tension related to tomorrow’s … a bit unplanned arrival of workers [from Uljanik] to Marko’s Square,” Horvat told national broadcaster Nova TV on August 26, regional portal SeeBiz reported.

During the day, Croatiam media reported that the government had found a solution for Uljanik’s workers July salaries that would be paid via commercial banks.

Horvat called on workers and management to take a proactive part in finding a solution for ongoing problem, SeeBiz reported.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic commented on the situation on August 23, saying that the government “wanted to help the company and its workers but that its decisions had to be in line with the relevant laws and EU rules on state aid”.

"This is a private company and responsibility for its performance rests primarily with its management," the prime minister stressed. 

Uljanik was until recently seen as one of the success stories from the restructuring of Croatia’s shipbuilding sector. In total the sector has absorbed a total of HRK31.3bn in various bailout attempts since Croatia gained its independence. 

“[T]he maritime and shipbuilding industries are important for our country, they have a long tradition. In the 1980s we were the world's third biggest ship producer. That was the situation 30 years ago. Today we are around 10th place in the global shipbuilding ranking, with a share of 0.33%. In Europe, Croatia is third, with a share of 21.4%," Plenkovic said according to a government statement. 

According to some local media, Plenkovic will meet workers on August 27 before he departs for two-day official visit to Germany to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel.