Croatia after the assassinations: Chances for new reform dynamics

Tomislav Maršić

No 28/2008, SWP Comments from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Abstract: Croatia is under shock: Two commissioned murders, with obvious political links to the Mafia, have been carried out in quick succession on the streets of the country. Today, some eight years after the beginning of the 'second transformation' during which the country shifted from a semi-autocratic presidential system to parliamentary democracy, and shortly before the conclusion of negotiations on Croatia's accession to the EU, nobody would have reckoned with this kind of Mafia-style score-settling. The resulting wave of indignation will force the Croatian government, after years of passivity, to take the offensive and to adopt substantial reforms. This task requires nothing less than the political neutralization of influential figures. These individuals, who established excellent links to the political class during the war, are still present in some 'coordinating points of power.' Yet, part of this pressure for reform comes from the outside too: Shortly before the publication of the EU Commission's progress report, the government had to demonstrate its good faith. It removed the Interior and Justice Ministers, in order to allay French, German and Dutch reservations regarding Croatia's accession to the EU

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/256071/1/2008C28.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:swpcom:282008

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SWP Comments from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().