Croatia

General information about the policy process
The European policy in Croatia is created in coordination between the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Croatian Parliament, as noted below under the paragraph "The relationship between actors".

Implementation of the European union legislation is done by the Parliament, as an ordinary legislative procedure in Croatia. Also, Government has passed the Decision on the Instruments for the Harmonization of the Legislation of the Republic of Croatia with the European Union Acquis, which lays down the instruments and obligations of expert legislation makers in preparing of drafts of legislation for harmonization of Croatian legislation with the European Union legislation.

Monitoring of the implemented legislation is done by the Government's Office for Legislation, through the impact assessment procedure, where the Office gives opinions and creates necessary acts in order to legally and linguistically harmonize Croatian legislation with the European Union standards.

Levels of government in Croatia

The Republic of Croatia is  democratic parliamentary republic. The Republic of Croatia is organised as unitary republic with three levels of governance: the central level, the regional level with the counties (županija) and the local level with the municipalities (općina) and cities (grad).

Main national actors
The main actors are the Government and the Parliament.

The Governement

The Government of the Republic of Croatia exercises executive power. It consists of the Prime Minister, one or more Deputy Prime Ministers and other ministers. It is responsible to the Croatian Parliament. The Government proposes to the Croatian Parliament laws and other acts, the state budget and the annual accounts, it executes laws and other decisions by the Croatian Parliament, adopts regulations for the implementation of laws, conducts foreign and internal policies, directs and supervises the work of state administration, takes care of the economic development of the country, directs the activities and development of public services and performs other tasks prescribed by the Constitution and the law.

The Parliament

The Croatian Parliament is called the Sabor. It is the representative body of its citizens and is vested with legislative power. It has 151 members. The Government of the Republic of Croatia is accountable to the Parliament for its work and the decisions it makes. At the request of the Parliament, the Government is obliged to inform the Parliament about its work, about the policy it pursues, about the execution of laws and other regulations, and about other issues within the scope of the Government.

Local and regional actors

The republic of Croatia consists of 21 regional government units: 20 counties (županija) and the City of Zagreb, which as a capital and the largest city has a special status of both city and county. Counties consist of cities and municipalities. There are 127 cities and 428 municipalities in the Republic of Croatia. Croatian regional and local government is very fragmented, with low public authorities and many of them depend on organizational or fiscal help of central state administration.

In the period from 2000 to 2004, all counties, at the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, established the Council for European Integration (Županijski savjet za europske integracije - ŽSEI) intending to decentralize the European integration process in Croatia. The councils work following the guidelines of the Ministry, which refer to the strengthening of institutional abilities (human resources), through learning foreign languages ​​and participating in seminars on European integration issues. Within the framework of cooperation with other state administration bodies, primarily the Central State Office for Development Strategy and Coordination of EU Funds and the Ministry of Regional Development, Forestry and Water Management, ŽSEI representatives participate in training and thus enabling them to transmit information on calls for proposals under EU programs in which their counties can participate.

The relationship between actors
The  Act on Cooperation between the Parliament and the Government of the Republic of Croatia in European Affairs  stipulates that the Parliament shall monitor the Government’s work within the EU institutions, review the EU documents and Croatia’s positions and reach conclusions on them, participate in putting forward Croatian candidates for the EU institutions and bodies, take part in cooperation between national parliaments, cooperate with the European Parliament etc.

Also, an  Interdepartmental Working Group for European Affairs   has been established within the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, tasked with reviewing and preparing position proposals that Croatia’s representatives would advocate and submitting them to the Croatian Government’s  Coordination Body for Internal and Foreign Policy.

Croatian Parliament adopts legislation harmonized with the EU legislation and the relevant legislation can be adopted under urgent procedure.