Case report
Chalenges of Effective Civil Security System in Croatia in the Context of the EU Membership
Višnja Samardžija
; Institute for Development and International Relations – IRMO, Zagreb, Croatia
Sanja Tišma
; Institute for Development and International Relations – IRMO, Zagreb, Croatia
Ivana Skazlić
; Institute for Development and International Relations – IRMO, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In the area of civil security, there is no unique European civil security system and it is primary responsibility of each EU member state itself to ensure proper protection and rescue of their own citizens. As result there are significant variations among the national civil security systems within the EU. Nevertheless, on the basis of solidarity principle the EU has developed various crisis management mechanisms aimed to assist and complement member states’ actions in prevention, response and recovery from disaster and crisis. Croatia became the EU member on July 1, 2013, undertaking responsibilities of the EU member state. As regards, this paper gives a brief overview of rules, structures, policies and practices relevant for Croatian civil security system and deals with key strengths and weakness of the system in protecting citizens from natural and man-made disasters in order to be able to adequately contribute to civil security challenges within the wider EU framework. The results of this paper confirm the main hypothesis that Croatia has made a significant progress resulting from civil security reforms that have been introduced over the past years, but there are still many areas where additional efforts are needed for the better functioning of the country within the EU.
Keywords
Civil security; crisis management; strengths; weaknesses; effectiveness; transparency; legitimacy; Croatia; European Union
Hrčak ID:
121027
URI
Publication date:
30.4.2014.
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