engleski

The Croatian Parliament in the European Union: Ready, Steady, Go!

This work is chapter in the book which analyses how are the national parliaments of all EU member states involved in the European affairs (issues which are result of the EU membership). At the beginning author analyses, the role of Croatian Parliament in the process of Croatia's accession to the European Union. Within this process Croatian Parliament established the Committee for European Integration which monitored harmonization with the EU acquis. Additionally, the National Committee for the Monitoring of Accession Negotiations was also established with the aim of providing opinions and guidelines on each of the government’s negotiation positions on the individual chapters. Through these activities the Croatian Parliament acquired a certain expertise which was of crucial importance after the accession, when Croatian system of parliamentary scrutiny in the area of European affairs has been established. The construction of this system was initiated with the constitutional changes in 2010 and it was finalized with coming to force of the Law on Cooperation between Croatian Parliament and Government in the European Affairs (2013), as well as through changes of the Parliament’s Standing Orders. The author analyses adopted procedures within Croatian system of parliamentary scrutiny from the perspective of the activities and obligations for the Government and the Parliament’s Committee for European Affairs, which was established after Croatian EU accession. Separately, the author evaluates the praxis of Croatian Parliament in implementation of the monitoring procedures introduced with coming to force of the EUʼs Lisbon Treaty (primarily procedure of compliance with the subsidiarity principle also known as the Early Warning Mechanism). Additionally, the author analyses activities of Croatian Parliament at the EU level as well as European affairs in parliamentary political practice. Concerning the later, analyses was made of the role of opposition MPs and civil society organizations in creation of Croatian system of parliamentary scrutiny, outspread of the “hard” Eurosceptic standpoints among the MPs as well as on MPs polarization during introduction of the European Arrest Warrant in Croatia. Taking into consideration the criteria such as: timing of the scrutiny (ex-ante or ex-post), the place of scrutiny (committee or floor), the types of instruments used, the degree of openness etc. the author concludes that Croatian system of parliamentary scrutiny is closest to the so called policy shaper model of the parliamentary activity. This model (Hafftler et al., 2013) implies that most activities take place ex-ante, with procedures mainly focused on the committees, while the principle instruments for scrutiny are parliamentary conclusions and opinions, all of which corresponds with the praxis of Croatian Parliament. It is also concluded that Croatian system of parliamentary scrutiny potentially could correspond well with the so called expert model of the parliamentary activity, having in mind that the legislation allows early intervention of the standing committees and given the possibility for the Parliament to produce detailed expert opinions. In the end the author concludes that the extent to which the Croatian system will approximate more with either model of parliamentary activity will largely depend on the readiness of the standing committees to become more deeply involved in the scrutiny process.

Croatian Parliament, European Union, Lisbon Treaty, EU affairs, Parliamentary scrutiny

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