THE EFFECTS OF THE WTO AND THE TTIP AGREEMENT ON THE CROATIAN ECONOMY

Abstract

Immediately after becoming independent on 15 January 1991, the Republic of Croatia became a member of the IMF. Although, as a successor of the former Yugoslavia, it had full GATT membership, and thus membership in the WTO, the Croatian government did not know how to exercise its rights and therefore had to go through the entire procedure in order to access the organisation in 2000. Presently, Croatia is the 28th Member State of the EU and has scarce information about the TTIP, the effects of which will directly affect Croatia as well as all Member States. The purpose of this paper is to realistically analyse the possible effects on our economy in relation to this globally important agreement. The TTIP is a trade agreement between the EU and the USA which has an important economic and geo-strategic interest, since its role is connecting two powerful economies and their common position on the global market as well as long-term pace-setting in relation to other regions in the world, which refers to the standard and the way of doing business. Therefore, we can conclude that the long-term strategic goal is market integration and establishment of grid plans which, once established, will not be able to undergo significant changes. The aim of this paper is to examine the default hypothesis and thus establish facts in relation to trends in international trade and its adaptation to globalization and economic changes in the world as well as its impact on Croatia. The scientific methods used in this paper are methods of systematic analysis, the dialectical and logical method, mostly in the inductive-deductive combination, and vice versa. The scientific contribution is reflected in the development of scientific thought about the importance of the effects of globalization on trade and the economy in general in the world and in Croatia.

Keywords: WTO, TTIP, trade, effects on the economy, cooperation with Croatia