Chorwacja

Abstract

Ever since gaining independence in 1991, Croatian regional self-government has undergone immense transformation. For the entire decade, self-government was strongly marginalized due to the centralized policy of the then-functioning government. Its importance grew only in the beginning of the 21st century, when the change occurred at the top levels of government. Since 2001, the process of decentralization in Croatia has been most visible in gradually handing more and more responsibilities and tasks over, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, found in the Croatian constitution, to both units of self-government, that is, to the local authority (composed of 400 communes and over 120 cities) and to the regional authority (20 counties called županija). The capital city of Zagreb has special status. As such, Zagreb performs self-governing public affairs functions of both a city and a county. The introduction of changes to legislation in 2007, that is implementation of direct and universal elections to self-government executive bodies, did not bring an end to, but was a part of the process of change of the Croatian self-government. Not all plans have been fulfilled during the few years of fast development, due to unwillingness of some central authorities to hand over more powers to regional and local governments. Also, the fairly small population and economic potential of communes and counties may cause some difficulties, since they are too many and minute to play an important role in discussions about the future of Croatian self-government.