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Migration trends and the development of migration policy in the Republic of Croatia

For centuries Croatia has been a traditional country of emigration. During the last years the country registered an increased immigration flow, and all until 2009 it had a positive net migration. The recent economic crisis which also hit Croatia, specially effected sectors that traditionally employ the largest numbers of foreign workers: shipbuilding, the construction industry and tourism. Consequently, from 2009 up until 2011 the Government greatly reduced the quotas intended for the employment of foreign workers. The reasons for the reduction of the quotas are in fact structural in nature, and the recession only emphasized them further. These are, first of all: a high level of unemployment, a mismatch on the labour market the inflexibility and low mobility of domestic labour (and of the population), uncompetitiveness of the Croatian labour force and demographic ageing of the population. So far the policy makers have not yet recognised immigration as a potential which could alleviate structural disbalance in the society and its influence on economic, demographic and social recovery. Though its legal framework has been harmonised with the EU acquis, Croatia still does not have a systematically developed migration policy and, among other things, the policy has not defined which type of immigration, if any, should be encouraged. If by the time of accession to the EU Croatia will not develop its own migration policy, then through the extension of the "Schengen regime", its role in this regard could be reduced to guarding the borders of "fortress Europe", instead of providing efficient management of migration flows and adopting an active role in the development of a new common EU migration policy.

migration, immigration, labour migration, migration policy, EU, Croatia

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