Transitional Justice in Croatia after the EU Accession

This paper seeks to answer the research question: what happened to the transitional justice process in Croatia after the EU accession compared to the period before the accession? In the academic literature, there is a prominent perception that the external pressure for reform has been crucial for Croatia’s accession to NATO and the EU. Because of this, it seems that Croatia’s becoming a member state of the EU in 2013 was a moment that created uncertainty over the type of decisions the government would take in the field of transitional justice once international pressure had stopped. Therefore, it seems legitimate to wonder whether Croatia’s accomplishments were sustained and improved when the external pressure for reforms was gone, especially in the sphere of transitional justice and reconciliation, so closely linked with the official interpretation of national identity and collective memories of the recent traumatic past. To answer the research question, the completed analysis compared the period before (during the official negotiations period, from 2005 until 2013) and after (from 2013 until 2020) the accession by looking into the three elements of transitional justice policy that were given priority by the EU conditionality framework: efforts to ensure respect for and protection of minority rights (understood as proper legislation adopted, effective investigation of hate crimes, tolerant and cooperative inter-ethnic relations); elimination of impunity for war crimes (understood as an active prosecution of war crimes in domestic courts and effective cooperation with the ICTY); efforts to foster reconciliation (understood as the treatment of returnees, active truth-seeking efforts, public apologies by political leaders and good neighbourly relations with Serbia). The data for the analysis were collected from carefully selected international organisations monitoring reports, Croatian state institutions, secondary sources, media reports from Croatia, and conducted content analysis of public speeches delivered during the most meaningful commemorative events in Croatia. The findings of this assessment of the transitional justice and human rights situation in Croatia before and after the EU accession demonstrate that all three elements of transitional justice policy have deteriorated in the post-accession period. After the conditionality pressure was removed, the achievements in transitional justice were not sustained, and the conditionality policy was most effective when applied. On the one hand, the research results illustrate the power of international pressure, but on the other hand, they question the overall effectiveness and long-term effect of the EU conditionality policy in Croatia.