WGA 2020 | Croatia | Main Actors

Main Actors

Question:
Who are the main actors that cooperate in WGA-like fashion in your country? At what levels do you see cooperation and coordination, whether in a formal or informal manner, taking place in your country’s dealings with external crises and conflicts?

Croatia Expert

Tonci Prodan

Director, Portus Et Navem, Split

Tonci Prodan is currently working as Director of the private security consulting company Portus Et Navem in Split, Croatia. He is active on several national and international security projects covering a broad spectrum of security issues, such as counterterrorism and other contemporary security threats. Furthermore, he is also active as an Interim Lecturer at the University Department of Forensic Sciences in Split and two other private institutions. Prior to joining Portus Et Navem, Tonci served as Assistant Director of the Office of the National Security Council of the Republic of Croatia. He has been professionally involved in issues related to national security for a number of years, and this has expanded to international security in recent years. Tonci holds a PhD in Comparative Politics from the University of Zagreb.

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Croatia’s WGA is executed by a well-defined and robust leadership body, which includes the deputy prime minister (who simultaneously serves as the minister of defence) and a number of state secretaries from the more important ministries. At the intra-ministerial level, WGA-related coordination takes place in both formal and informal ways. Formal cooperation is firmly established and formalised within separate committees that are significant for supporting WGA, which hold weekly or monthly meetings. Informal cooperation, on the other hand, takes place on an almost daily basis.

On the legislative level, there is formal WGA coordination within Croatia’s parliament. Formal cooperation is firmly established and formalised within various parliamentary committees that are important for the WGA (e.g. the Defence Committee, the Legislation Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Domestic Policy and National Security Committee), all of which hold regular meetings. When it comes to coordination between the executive and legislative branches, Croatia’s government informs its parliament once a year about the actions that have been taken in pursuing a WGA towards external crises.

There are also a number of other efforts aimed at coordination and cooperation within and among various bodies. For example, the Ministry of Interior cooperates with the Jesuit Refugee Service. Furthermore, Croatia formally cooperates with PESCO, the Schengen Information System (SIS), the European Defence Agency (EDA), the UN, NATO, the OECD-DAC and the OSCE, although the precise constellation of governmental bodies involved in these efforts changes depending on the particulars of the collaborative effort. For example, the parliament’s European Affairs Committee formally cooperates with the UN, the EU, the OSCE and NATO. A recent example of such cooperation involved horizontal cooperation within the Ministry of Defence followed the next day by vertical cooperation in a meeting chaired by the prime minister.

Another example of cooperation relates to Croatia’s efforts to boost its integrated border-management capacities, as discussed above, although this cooperation comes more in the form of financial assistance to Croatia from the European level. For example, in response to increased migration pressure, Croatia has had to reinforce the parts of its border making up part of the EU’s external border with additional police officers. In addition, Croatia’s Ministry of the Interior requested and subsequently received almost EUR 6.8 million in additional financial support from the European Commission. These funds have been used for a number of enhancements, such as a stationary surveillance system for the borders with BiH and Montenegro, stationary day-night long-range cameras, and seven surveillance drones (Croatian Government 2019).

There are also a number of smaller cooperations. For example, as part of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), Croatia is supporting missions along the Somalian coast (piracy), in the Mediterranean Sea (migrants), and in Ukraine as part of the EU’s advisory mission there (EUAM). As part of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), Croatia’s Ministry of the Interior is also providing migration-related support to EU member states, including Cyprus, Greece and Italy. Croatia’s government has an agreement with the Council of Ministers of Bosnia-Herzegovina on European partnership. What’s more, at Croatia’s urging, the EU has paid more attention to fostering political reforms in BiH, especially when it comes to electoral law.

Croatia Report