"The protest is aimed at drawing public attention to the difficult situation in our shipyard. We call on all workers to join us at tomorrow's protest," said the leader of the Brodosplit Independent Workers' Unions, Zvonko Segvic.

Representatives of all three shipyard workers' unions met with Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor in Zagreb on Monday, but there was no concrete agreement on anything, said Segvic.

"We acquainted her with the problems in the shipyard. I told her that some things did not correspond with the facts. Europe has banned us from doing anything," he said.

The government is not giving the shipyard guarantees for new contracts and its workers will most probably spend the winter doing nothing, unionists said.

The government must not give guarantees to shipyards until the European Commission approves programmes for their restructuring, which is a precondition for their privatisation.

Officials of the Market Competition Agency (AZTN), which also must approve the restructuring programmes, said at a briefing today that Croatia had adopted regulations under which it was to have stopped the practice of giving government guarantees for contracts on new ships four and a half years ago.