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Zagreb - The Croatian parliament on Wednesday passed a set of 61 laws to streamline state administration, under which state administration offices would be abolished and their duties taken over by counties.
The laws were aligned with the State Administration Act which provides for all state administration offices, except the administrative and sports inspectorates, to be abolished and their duties assigned to counties.
Counties will thus be put in charge of about 200 additional proceedings, and so far they had nearly three times fewer. They will also take charge of about 2,000 staff, which will bring their total staff to about 4,200.
Of 2,500 state administration staff, about 500 have opted for severance pay, for which purpose HRK 150 million (€20 million) will be secured.
A total of 96 assistant ministers will lose the status of government officials and their positions will be filled by heads of directorates for four-year terms.
The Ministry of Administration says that the planned changes will streamline the state administration system and save between HRK 30 million (€4.05 million) and HRK 40 million (€5.4 million).
Parliament rejected an amendment put forward by the Social Democratic Party (SDP), under which members of the European Parliament and the European Commission would have been included among office holders subject to the Conflict of Interest Prevention Act.