Conclusions
The Republic of Croatia has almost completely implemented a WGA that is fully in line with the country’s constitution and includes cooperation among executive, legislative and judicial authorities. The national WGA was patterned after the EU framework and shares aspects in common with several other WGAs, including those of the UN, NATO and the OSCE. As a result, the national WGA enjoys effective and high-quality institutional arrangements.
Croatia has had a WGA since 2017, when the current National Security Strategy (Republic of Croatia 2017) was adopted and the Act on National Security System was passed (Croatian Parliament 2017). There are integrated processes for initiating, programming and implementing the WGA on the national level. Furthermore, funds for enforcing the implementation of the WGA (in the form of the homeland security system) are provided by the government budget pursuant to Art. 18 of the Act on National Security System (ibid.). If the funds are not sufficient, it is possible to redistribute some funds within the government budget after officially notifying the parliament.
Furthermore, Coordination for the Homeland Security System (CHSS), the body in charge of coordinating the activities of the homeland security system and seeing that the decisions of the National Security Council are implemented, has a composition that itself reflects a horizontal WGA, as it includes the heads of several ministries and other organisations involved in responding to crises. What’s more, it serves a vertical WGA function in its role as a communications channel between members of the executive and legislative branches, including the president, the prime minister and the speaker of the parliament.