ZAGREB, 16 March, 2021 - The European Commission on Tuesday disbursed €9 billion to seven EU member states, including €510 million to Croatia, in the fifth instalment of financial support to preserve employment during the coronavirus pandemic under the SURE instrument.

This is the second instalment this year. Czechia has received €1 billion, Spain €2.87 billion, Italy €3.87 billion, Lithuania €302 million, Malta €123 million and Slovakia €330 million.

So far, 16 member states have received a total of €62.5 billion under the SURE instrument in loans which the Commission is taking out on financial markets at the best terms.

Croatia received the first instalment of €510 million on 17 November.

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ZAGREB, October 22, 2020 - By the end of this year Croatia will receive €490 million from the EU SURE instrument for temporary support to mitigate unemployment risks in an emergency following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the government said on Thursday, adding that a total of €1.02 billion has been approved for Croatia.

At today's cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Zdravko Maric was authorised to sign a loan agreement with the EU for this temporary support.

The SURE instrument was established by decision of the Council of the EU in May with the aim of providing financial assistance of up to €100 billion in the form of loans from the EU to affected member states to address sudden increases in public expenditure for the preservation of employment.

To finance these loans, the European Commission will borrow money on financial markets and lend it to member states under favourable terms. The first tranche of €17 billion was conducted a few days ago, and the interest was ten times higher, Maric said.

"The instrument is designed for short work time schemes and similar measures to help member states protect jobs and employed and self-employed people from the risk of unemployment and loss of income. All member states have signed a guarantee agreement to date, whereby the SURE instrument has become operational," Maric said.

He said that Croatia had applied for this funding to address sudden and serious increases in expenditures connected with subsidies to preserve jobs and support for shorter work time.

"A loan of €1.02 billion is available to Croatia, with a maximum average maturity of 15 years and an availability period for financial support of 18 months. Financial support can be used through a maximum of eight instalments which can be paid by one or more tranches. These are very favourable loans, and a total of €490 million will be paid to Croatia by the end of this year, which will be included in the budget revision and which is about 48% of the allocation," Maric said.

The government also decided to include micro and small businesses in the state aid programme for the sea, transport and transport infrastructure sector to help them cope with the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

ZAGREB, July 24, 2020 - Grants for the implementation of the shortened working week have so far been requested for 25,000 workers, the Vecernji List daily wrote on Friday.

After the cessation of the payment of grants under the job preservation scheme, the government and social partners agreed on the shortened working hours scheme for companies that would like to retain their employees despite their reduced business activities.

To date, 270 small, medium-sized, and big companies with 12,500 people on their payrolls have applied for grants for the shortened working week. Furthermore, 5,500 micro-businesses with about 12,000 workers have also requested this aid.

The number of about 24,500 workers covered by this measure is four to six times lower than what was expected.

 A majority of the requests have been sent from the processing industry.

The whole scheme is being funded from the European Union's SURE instrument for temporary Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency.

The SURE instrument will act as a second line of defence, supporting short-time work schemes and similar measures, to help the Member States protect jobs and thus employees and self-employed against the risk of unemployment and loss of income.

The SURE instrument is made available after all member states provide their respective guarantees according to their share in the EU's Gross National Income. SURE is one of the three safety nets whose total value is put at €540 billion, which will be allocated for job preservation and as assistance to enterprises and member states.