Strengthening Croatia’s economy as it joins the EU
Boosting research and innovation in Croatia can strengthen the economy ( Credit: Jisc, Flickr Creative Commons)
An injection of much-needed investment funds awaits Croatia when it joins the European Union on July 1: An amount equivalent to about 4 percent of the country’s GDP will become available to Croatia through the EU Cohesion Policy when it becomes the EU’s 28th member nation. The funds offer Croatia a unique opportunity for financing strategic investments, aiming to restore the country’s growth prospects and generate better employment opportunities.
Experience shows, however, that seizing this opportunity is not easy: New member countries of the EU have often allocated those funds to projects with low economic and social returns, or have simply failed to effectively deploy these funds.
It is uncontroversial that the resources governments spend belong to the people. How these resources get allocated varies from country to country at the national and local levels. Debates and deliberations surrounding the budgetary process are usually technical, tedious, and time-consuming. Nonetheless, budgeting in the public sector is a critical entry point for the demand for better public goods and services and, more broadly, meaningful and effective citizen engagement. If citizens could exercise their voices in the prioritization of public sector spending, then government programs would have a higher likelihood of reflecting the needs and wants of constituents. So a key challenge and opportunity in this area is finding a judicious balance between solid technical analysis and meaningful citizen participation.