Flag of Croatia
During the qualifying matches for the UEFA EURO 2008, Croatia first made the news when it eliminated England from the competition in one of the most prestigious football (pronounced soccer if you’re from the U.S.) tournaments; it then made the headlines when it bested Germany in its group and advanced as far as the quarterfinals before being stopped by Turkish “miracle” on penalty kicks. Now, as politicians in Zagreb are trying to advance the country toward membership in the European Union, the spotlight is once again on Hrvatska.
If you follow Croatia developments, then the latest Freedom House report by Petar Doric is a must read. Taken from the executive summary:
Croatia continues its process of European Union (EU) accession as an EU candidate country, but progress reports from Brussels have been mixed. Of particular concern remain the independence and professionalism of judicial institutions, minority treatment, and the prevalence of corruption. Partially in response to EU and increasing citizen concern, a high-profile investigation of corruption within the state privatization fund took place in 2007.
The report includes several sections addressing everything from…
- national and local governance,
- elections,
- civil society,
- media,
- judicial sector and
- corruption.
Of interest to readers of this blog may be an excerpt from the section on Croatia’s corruption:
Corruption is considered pervasive throughout public institutions, particularly health and judicial institutions. Government efforts to combat higher-level corruption were taken up a notch in 2007 with Operation Maestro…
The operation has so far led to the prosecution and imprisonment of only three low-level officials. However, owing partly to this and other government efforts, the public now perceives corruption as one of the country’s central problems and is demanding a more serious anticorruption policy as evidenced by the campaign platforms of all major political parties during the November elections.
In part due to this, Freedom House (official website) rated corruption in Croatia as improving from 4.75 to 4.50.
See also a short news item about a Croatia report by Dun&Bradstreet, a credit rating agency .
