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Question Time (QT) in parliamentary democracies allows parliamentarians (MPs) to publicly scrutinise the government and influence the policy agenda. This paper explores how the other side, the cabinet members, make use of the event. Prime Minister (PM) and other ministers have incentives to inform and persuade the public and might adjust their responses to oral questions accordingly. The paper tests this expectation on the responses of Croatian cabinet members in QT between 2003 and 2020. The analysis demonstrates that when ministers respond to the questions from co-partisan MPs, which are likely coordinated within the party, their responses include more numerical evidence. Moreover, both PMs and ministers respond to their co-partisan MPs with a more positive sentiment, which is driven by the positive sentiment of the respective questions. These findings have important implications for executive-legislative relations, the quality of parliamentary scrutiny and the public perception of parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: This paper investigates the feasibility and the perception of the nurse's role as the palliative care coordinator. Background: Integrated care is a global imperative in all healthcare improvement processes. Due to Andrija Štampar's success in the organisation of public health services, Croatia today has more than hundred years of experience in care integration. The palliative care system has been continuously developing since 2014 as an integrated care model, with nurses as care coordinators. Methods: The study used a mixed methodology based on pragmatic research principles, including an analysis of strategic and policy documents and reports, and thematic analysis of focus group conducted with palliative care coordinators, following COREQ checklist. Results: Although a legal, professional and financial regulation of nurse coordinators has been achieved, a number of implementation challenges remain. These challenges arise as a result of long‐term fragmentation of the health and social care, and can be found in both horizontal and vertical integration of care, that is in the dimensions of functional, clinical, cultural and social integration. Conclusions: Nurses play a central role in care coordination. Coordination and integration promote professionalisation with clear roles and tasks. However, even with the legal, professional and financial implementation of the nurse coordinator model, it has to be further promoted as an equally important job in the healthcare system, with nurses as competent professionals in charge of care coordination. Relevance to clinical practice: Palliative care provides a range of individualised, coordinated services that meet the medical and non‐medical needs of seriously ill patients. Described model of palliative care in Croatia is particularly important because it was developed as an integrated part of health care (and partly social welfare) system, indicating with the nurse's role as palliative care coordinator that coordination is a continuous process that requires a dedicated professional role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to investigate in detail the strategies and efforts of children consumer protection national policies in order to conduct a comprehensive review of ongoing practices. Through content analysis, the paper investigates four dimensions of national policies: general elements of children consumer protection policies, marketing communication restrictions, harmful product-specific restrictions, and empowerment and education in five different countries of diverse cultural dimensions: Germany, the USA, the UK, Spain, and Croatia. The paper fills an existing research gap by emphasizing practices of children consumer protection strategies that should be encouraged and those that should be avoided, thereby formulating the recommendations needed to prevent the negative consequences of marketing communication. The findings confirm that successful strategies have strong national legislations, market self-regulation, and education on media literacy. Advertisement for all potentially harmful product categories should be strictly regulated in order for children to be fully protected. According to the results, Germany and the UK are the most efficient in children consumer protection policies, followed by Spain, Croatia, and the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the discursive analysis of the neoliberal coinage of mental health, observing neoliberalism as a modern rational form of governmentality. Inspired by Michel Foucault's theory of discourse and governmentality (but also by others -- Nikolas Rose, Sara Ahmed), in this paper I analyse what meanings and knowledge about mental health are articulated in public policies in Croatia by neoliberal market demands and the logic of self-management. The main thesis of the paper addresses the primary purpose of neoliberalism in the process of economization -- the creation of a social reality in which all aspects of human life are reduced to economic problems, including human health itself. Through the analysis of public health projects and campaigns, the paper shows the connection between mental health policy and the constructed entrepreneurial self of citizens. Reading the critical categories of productivity, risk, resources, ability, and personal responsibility, in the paper I problematize how health has become a bioeconomy. Health thus becomes the mediation of the market and the neoliberal system in which the individual is seen as a consumer, who will either be a burden or contribute to the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key feature of EU Smart Specialization is experimentalist governance, or the idea that policy principals only partially possess the necessary knowledge for policy design and implementation. Instead, discovering policy priorities, designing instruments, and detecting and correcting errors are the responsibilities of a wide range of innovation stakeholders. However, particularly in institutionally less developed countries and regions, there is often a clash between the requirements for experimental governance and the public policy demand for predominantly procedural accountability. Our central argument is that the experimentation dimension cannot be added to the conventional policy cycle without altering it. This results in a trade-off between experimentation and accountability, leading to four disconnected governance regimes: EDP, design, implementation, and M&E. This paper demonstrates this issue in the case of Croatia's S3. Using the concept of a dynamic policy cycle, we critically examine different solutions to experimentation and highlight their deficiencies. Our analysis and conclusions are highly relevant for countries and regions adopting experimental policy approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Croatian & Comparative Public Administration is the property of Institut za Javnu Upravu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Croatian & Comparative Public Administration is the property of Institut za Javnu Upravu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The 2019 European Open Data Directive identifies geospatial data as data that could have a major impact on human activities (high-value data, HVD) and advocates its provision as open data (OD), i.e., without barriers to access and re-use. Although Croatia has implemented OD policies to support the provision of open data, many geospatial data are still not available, or if available, their level of openness ranks Croatia lower than Slovenia and Serbia on some ranking lists. Benchmarking tools have proven to be a powerful tool in identifying barriers in OD. This paper, therefore, benchmarks the level of openness and provision of geospatial HVD in Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, using the extended and modified Global Open Data Index methodology (GODI Plus). It is expected that this will provide an answer to the status of OD policies and government engagement in OD in Croatia and identify good OD practices among the three countries analyzed. Furthermore, the results will be a baseline benchmark for future HVD analyses. The results reveal low data openness for Croatia and Serbia, high data openness for Slovenia, and a low level of government engagement in all three proposed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possibility for Croatia to obtain new fighter aircraft is not new, as this option has been publicly debated for at least a decade. A sudden decision to advance the acquisition of a limited number of fighter aircraft was made in 2017 with an international tendering process concluding in early 2018. Through open source material, this paper will look at this procurement process by examining the relationship between policy and strategic thinking on the one side, and policy delivery on the other, and evaluate why the tendering process failed in achieving envisaged results. The paper concludes that the problems facing the Croatian aircraft acquisition process stem from at least two interrelated factors: firstly, at the operational level, the failure of the procurement was the direct result of mismanaged tendering procedures linked to the wider public administration reform process; and secondly, at the strategic level, inherently complex civil-military relations and related cultural aspects which have not been adequately addressed over the past decades. The result was a failure to deliver on government policy, something which this paper argues will need to be addressed over the medium to long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research in this paper focuses on harmonization and synchronization of traffic flows in the period of application of zonal temporary traffic regulation. The specific case scenario addressed in this research implicates that on both carriageways no vehicles were allowed to reside in the work zones for a significant time interval in the same time periods on both sections. In order to solve this problem, the model for harmonization of the traffic flows on dual carriageway motorways with synchronization of opposing traffic flows on both carriageways in special traffic conditions is presented. Actual traffic situation that occurred is presented in order to demonstrate the model, where intensive traffic flows were interrupted on both carriageways during extensive road works on two nearby sections. The model described in this paper has several stages. The first stage implies detailed analysis of traffic flows with computation of expected number of vehicles in the queue. The next stage in the modelling process is to calculate the queue discharge time for both directions and propose measures to optimise operating speed in order to maximize capacity. Then, a graphical method by means of two-way coordination diagram is used to synchronise stop signal timings on all closed sections. This paper shows results of a new model that was developed and implemented in real situations in most complex conditions that can occur on motorways. The research findings have shown the suitability of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration process of candidate and potential candidate countries for the EU causes confusion and scepticism among different stakeholders, which often leads to missing out on accession opportunities. Although NMS are able to achieve economic growth by joining the EU, membership success also depends on the initial agricultural structure, local and national policy, pre-accession and post-accession measures, education, vocational training, development of the non-farm rural economy and institutional environment. Croatia, as the newest EU member state, has been experiencing certain issues in the implementation of CAP measures. Using thematic references dealing with the issues of the CAP and harmonization of NMS and conducting interviews among stakeholders in Croatia through focus groups during the pre-accession and membership period, the goals of this paper were to determine: (1) the understanding of the CAP principles and adjustments of national agricultural policies (2) the effects of policy results on national agriculture and further expectations (3) the state of policy learning and dialogue. These results could serve agricultural policy scholars as contribution to the analysis of integration policies and decision makers to avoid misunderstandings when implementing new agricultural policy measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present and analyze public policy research in the context of the development of Croatian political science, while also probing the relationship between public policy research within political science and its application through other sciences and interdisciplinary areas in Croatia. After the introduction, in the first part of the paper, the concept of public policy is delineated and the development of the theoretical discourse that was formed around public policies as a rational system of state intervention in society that strives for good governance is presented. In the second part, the context-specific development of public policy research within the framework of Croatian political science is analyzed and interpreted. In the third part, this development is linked to the examples of policy relevant research and teaching in other academic institutional foci and discourses that deal with public policies. In the conclusion, the current state of public policy research is evaluated and possible future directions of research development and academic influence on public policy making are outlined within and across the borders of political science. Our thesis – or, more precisely, a value-driven projection – is that in front of public policy as a theoretically and methodologically constituted subject of research and the political science sub-discipline, stronger interdisciplinary cooperation outside the framework of political science asserts itself as a major practical challenge ahead in the joint task of solving relevant public problems in the political community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Due to the significant rise in the use of social media in recent years, the purpose of this paper is to investigate who, how and why participates in creating content at political social networking websites utilising a content analysis of posts and comments published on Facebook during the 2015 general election campaign in Croatia. It shows consequences of a transition from traditional to social media campaigns and the effectiveness of social media at activating and moving public opinion during the general election campaign.Design/methodology/approach This study uses a data collection through a social media website, a classification of data set items by content attributes and a statistical analysis of the classified data.Findings Building on an empirical data set from Croatia, this study reveals that different political parties implement different election campaign strategies on social media to influence citizens who, consequently, respond differently to each of them. The results indicate that political messages with positive emotions evocate positive response from citizens, while neutral content is more likely to invoke negative comments and criticism, and support to the opponent. Another implication of the results is that two-way and tolerant communication of political actors increases citizen engagement, whereas unidirectional communication decreases it.Originality/value This paper provides an original insight into qualitative content analysis of posts and user comments published on Facebook during the 2015 general election campaign in Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ekonomski Vjesnik is the property of Ekonomski Vjesnik and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Glasnik Zastite Bilja is the property of Zadruzna Stampa D.D. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Collected Papers of Zagreb Law Faculty / Zbornik Pravnog Fakulteta u Zagrebu is the property of Sveuciliste u Zagrebu, Pravni Fakultet and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive adopted in 2008 aims to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) of the EU's marine waters by 2020 and to protect the resource base upon which marinerelated economic and social activities depend. To that end each Member State is required to develop its Marine Strategy, keep it up-to-date and have it reviewed every 6 years. The Republic of Croatia has by mid-2019 not adopted its national strategic document. The paper analyses the chronology, content of EU official country reports on marine environment, possible obstacles in adoption procedure and presents proposal for more efficient approach to protecting the Adriatic Sea. Marine spatial planning is also considered key instrument for managing the conflicts resulting from the increasing utilization and industrialization of the world's seas and oceans. The process of national marine policy adoption should be made more clear and transparent to general public which is at the same time the public concerned, and to expert community. Strategic vision can only be built on knowledge, education and awareness of wider public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social exclusion in later life involves the marginalization of older adults from all aspects of life in today's society and requires a significant change in public and social policy in ageing societies. Particularly excluded from all aspects of life are (older) people suffering from some form of dementia. Public library services are tailored to meet the informational and recreational needs of all population groups and are particularly suited to help overcome problems of exclusion. However, the research indicates that dementia library services are still in their very beginnings in most countries, including Croatia. This paper presents the goals and results of two projects carried out by the Department of Information Sciences of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University J. J. Strossmayer in Osijek, Croatia. Those projects deal with information needs and public library services of people with dementia (in particular, Alzheimer's disease) and their caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociology & Space / Sociologija i Prostor is the property of Institut za drustvena istrazivanja u Zagrebu (Institute for Social Research of Zagreb) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this paper is to create an index to measure the reputation of countries that belong to the European Union. Data for 28 countries has been taken from the Eurostat database and the method used is principal component analysis. The index is a combination of five different dimensions: (1) Economy, (2) Social Welfare, (3) Environment, (4) Digitalization and (5) Sports and Health, along with thirty-two distinct factors. The top scores in this index are Germany, United Kingdom or Sweden with high values in Economy or Environment. On the other side, we find Greece, Croatia or Cyprus, with a low process of digitalization. The International Reputation Index could be used to assist public policies designed to improve reputation in countries where it is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an analysis of the practical implications of the concept of solidarity economy and the elements of public policies that affect the solidarity economy in Croatia. In a broader sense, solidarity is a common component of economic behaviour. In a narrower sense, solidarity refers to a set of economic practices that meet the criteria of balancing economic, social and environmental sustainability, joint ownership and participatory governance. Solidarity economy supports the construction and maintenance of common economic goods, which may occur within legal entities, as well as in contractual relations or informal cooperation. Solidarity economy is close to the concept of social economy, and significantly different from collaborative (sharing) economy. Public policies that encourage solidarity-based economic practices have their origins in the welfare state regime and the level of solidarity in society, which is followed by ideologies, strategies and activities of political and economic actors. The social contributions of the solidarity economy and the risks to which it is exposed justify state intervention in this area, which can be reflected in regulation and institutional, financial and tax support to its actors and processes. Public policies in Croatia generally do not recognise the importance of the social and solidarity economy and its actors, such as cooperatives and social enterprises. Although the recognition of possible contributions of the social and solidarity economy to society and the economy in Croatia is growing, the incentive framework is incomplete and insufficient, which is reflected in the results and future prospects of this sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the development of Croatian company law within the framework of the European company law. The first part makes a summarized overview of EU company law mechanisms such as Directives and Regulations as well as the functioning of internal market trough the freedom of establishment and its impact on the lawmaking in Croatia and other Member States. The second part of the paper is stressing the EU Law influences on Croatian company law trough three phases: initial harmonization which began before SAA was signed, the further harmonization that became actual after signing SAA and in the end the changes brought by Croatian membership in EU. It is also emphasizing some side effects of the EU law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, the issue of regional convergence in the European Union has been the subject of a wide range of empirical research. This paper aims to provide more information on the differences in regional growth patterns of new member states (NMS), as well as Croatia, in addition to the factors influencing regional disparities within each country. This research provides an analysis of regional convergence in the period 2001-2008 at the NUTS II and NUTS III level. The most widely used model for testing convergence hypotheses is beta-convergence analysis. Other factors commonly included in the econometric modelling of convergence are demographic variables, labour market conditions, industrial structure, institutional factors and overall government policy. The main hypothesis is that the process of regional convergence in NMS and Croatia is not strong enough to dominate over other factors, influencing regional potential growth (mainly industry structure and quality of human capital). Absolute β-convergence can be found at the national level for EU countries. Convergence also can be found for NMS regions, but the pace of convergence on the regional level is lower in comparison to the national level and the estimated β-convergence parameter is less significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents empirical results of social evaluation of the first innovation policy programme, technology projects (TEST), in Croatia to identify and explain the main bottlenecks of the programme and put them in perspective in terms of the entire innovation system. The motivation is the growing criticism of innovation system's efficiency and perception of poor return on public investment in innovation policy programmes. The proposed method of social evaluation is based on combination of the institutional theory and the sociological approach of intended and unintended consequences. It reveals that expected outcomes of the programme such as commercialisation of research and technological outputs are exchanged, in the majority of projects, for essentially scientific results such as scientific publications and extension of the on-going scientific projects. The reasons are found in the institutional deficits that point to the persistence of some common 'systemic' problems in the innovation system. Their drivers are identified in three types of institutional deficits: administrative rules and procedures, some aspects of social capital and broader socio-economic environment that commonly determine behaviour and interaction of the main stakeholders of the programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of research papers dealing with corporate failure and insolvency in transition countries use a combination of financial ratios in investigating corporate failures, i.e., the microeconomic approach. By relying solely on the microeconomic approach, it is not possible to completely capture the complexity of business operations. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in exploring the predictive power of macroeconomic variables in forecasting insolvencies. As the macroeconomic approach has been applied mainly in the analysis of developed economies, this article investigates the influence of macroeconomic variables on aggregate corporate insolvency in Croatia, using the vector error-correction model (VECM) for the period 2000–2011. The results have shown a long-run dynamic connection between the corporate insolvency rate and the rate of unemployment while corporate credits, long-term interest rates and industrial production have a short-term effect on the corporate insolvency rate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The cultural and creative sectors are highly ranked by the number of employees at the European Union (EU) level and they represent an economic force that proved its resilience to economic changes due to rapid and easy adaptations to market and innovation trends. In order to achieve the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy, in 2013 the Regulation (EU) No 1295/2013 was passed by the European Parliament and the Council to establish the Creative Europe Programme (2014–2020) for support to cultural and creative sectors. However, it was found that the Republic of Croatia lacked systematic monitoring of the cultural and creative sectors (including the IT sector) as they are not sufficiently and well positioned in national policies and strategies. The research hasbeen conducted into the level of success of the EU and its regulatory framework in stimulating cultural and creative sectors in developing countries. The paper analyzes the extent to which the Republic of Croatia adopted and applied the opportunities offered by the European Union programmes in financing the projects in cultural and creative sectors based on the results of the Creative Europe Programme, the Culture Sub-programme. The authors conducted the comparative analysis into the official programme results achieved in the Republic of Croatia, Slovenia and other EU member states. The research results show the position of the Republic of Croatia in relation to other countries, the influence of EU membership length and the level of innovation on the total number of positive applications evaluations in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Polemos is the property of Croatian Sociological Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of e-GFOS is the property of Electronic Journal of the Faculty of Civil Engineering Osijek-e-GFOS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explains the main characteristics of and prerequisites for coordination between the measures and instruments of monetary and public debt management policies in Croatia and evaluates current practice, particularly over the last two recession years. Attention is drawn to the importance of coordination for achieving macroeconomic stability and to the main problems and challenges obstructing successful coordination. It is assessed that the Croatian National Bank (CNB), with its measures and instruments, has consistently contributed to improving coordination with the public debt management policy, despite the narrowing of its room for manoeuvre due to a complex economic environment and the specific functioning of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. Notwithstanding some contribution to coordination made by the Government and Ministry of Finance, they must take measures and employ instruments to make more significant adjustments and, together with the CNB, define an optimum fiscal and monetary policy mix for the future that will ensure stable economic growth. This paper gives an overview of major CNB measures aimed at facilitating the public debt management and improving coordination with the Ministry of Finance, and presents a detailed analysis of open market operations. It also points to a certain contribution of the Ministry of Finance to the coordination improvement, indicating major barriers to effective coordination between these important policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Collected Papers of Zagreb Law Faculty / Zbornik Pravnog Fakulteta u Zagrebu is the property of Sveuciliste u Zagrebu, Pravni Fakultet and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Društvena Istraživanja is the property of Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

im: Drug abuse, addictions, and drug-related crime represent one of the major and still rising problems in Croatia. Following the epidemic breakthrough in the 1990s, a system of prevention and treatment has developed. The aim of this paper is to analyze substance abuse in Croatia and its prevention capacities and practice for dealing with the problem. It analyzes possibilities for capacity building for health promotion and drug prevention in Croatia. Subject and methods: This problem analysis and need assessment is based on a planned change model widely used for health promotion planning and development of preventive or health promotion interventions. It includes four subanalyses: problem description, analysis of determinants, network and context analysis, and capacities analysis. Results: Croatian prevention practice lacks a comprehensive and science-based approach in planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of prevention programs. Although our institutional infrastructure is growing, professionals working with young people still lack specific and up-to-date knowledge and skills in mental health promotion and drug prevention to tackle the problem effectively. Conclusion: To improve prevention practice, a capacity building action is necessary. A postgraduate course on health promotion and drug prevention can boost our professional capacities and stimulate development of the academic field at the University of Rijeka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union funds can make a strong contribution to regional and local development of Croatia, however, how the funds will be achieved and implemented in the area of specific region, county, town or municipality depends on many factors. Also the importance of the European Union funds is growing, because local supporting measures funded by the Croatian Government are reducing, and entering the full European Union membership, most of them will be abolished. From that moment, the grand structural and cohesion European Union funds will be available. Criteria and conditions for obtaining of domestic support are much milder and easier to fulfil, but are less generous financial support. On the other hand, criteria and funding conditions of the European Union funds are difficult to fulfil, but financially much more generous. Therefore, in the context of accession to European Union except meeting of administrative requirements and harmonization of Croatian legislation with the acquis communautaire, it is particularly important to prepare the stakeholders at the regional and local level for using of the currently available funds of European Union and those funds which will be available in the future. Through this paper, using a case study of Pozega-Slavonia County , are showed some of the key challenges with which stakeholder are faced in the preparation of projects at regional and local level, and it is showed how much are stakeholders prepared and skilled to use their own capacities and other available capacities in preparation of project proposals. The paper gives specific guidelines, on how to successfully overcome the current challenges, and how to take as much as possible advantage of the European Union funds, which would certainly contribute to the higher level of regional development and higher competitiveness of our regions in conditions of the membership in European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at how Europe matters in the development of policies against domestic violence, a gender equality field outside the core European Union (EU) conditionality criteria. By analyzing the concrete workings and uses of Europe's domestic violence policy-making in five Central and Eastern European countries, it identifies three mechanisms of Europeanization in the field and shows how together they work to expand the reach of the EU to this policy realm. The findings point toward an understanding of Europeanization based on social learning and dynamic, interactive processes of constructing what membership in the EU means in terms of domestic violence policy processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Ekonomski Vjesnik is the property of Ekonomski Vjesnik and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyses the influence of excises increase and various non-price related measures on tobacco consumption. Therefore various regression models with different dependent and independent variables will be built, with the purpose of showing both their individual and cumulative impact. In all the models the price is definitely the most significant variable, but there are differences in price influence on consumption, depending on which series of cigarettes it relates to. That is logical because of the large difference in excises on different series of cigarettes. From other countries' experience and the results of regression models used in this paper the most important conclusion is that the impact of excise duty is significant, however for building more representative models detailed data over a longer period of time is needed. Unfortunately in Croatia such data are not collected systematically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers the role of policy analysis tools in preparing decisions within the Croatian public administration system, concentrating on the specific phase of adoption or formulation of public policy. The starting argument in the paper is that the application of policy analysis is fairly limited in the Croatian public sector. Policy science in Croatia is mostly confined to the analysis of policy, and not to the analysis for policy. The analysis for policy, including systematic comparison of options, collecting information for policy or policy advocacy, has just started to be applied in public administration structures. The failure in applying policy analysis is shown by the institutional deficiencies in running vertical and horizontal coordination, and by the failure in introducing a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) tool kit into the Croatian system of public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the generally accepted criticism of the International Monetary Fund and its relations with the media. The latter is done in respect of the IMF cooperation with Argentina and Croatia. These two countries did not have exactly the same type of cooperation with the IMF but they are similar in the amount of criticism that the IMF got in both of the countries. At first, it is thought that the IMF undermined the Argentinean economy and, secondly, it is often blamed for the foreign debt and for foreign ownership of Croatian banks. Additionally, the IMF is often blamed to be the enforcer of the US foreign policy directing its help towards the countries allied with the United States and at the same time undermining the economies of the countries not being allied with the United States. Due to the impossibility of getting any comment from the IMF (after several months of attempting to do so) with an explanation to consult the website, this paper also analyses the IMF website and its communication with the media via its official website. The conclusion is that the IMF website is doubtful due to the impossibility of obtaining certain information and due to the unclear system of classifying the press releases and country information. Instead of having clear communication with the media, the IMF directs a journalist to the website where it seems that it ignores certain information and underlines the other making the work of trying to get a clear and full information really difficult and furthermore, making the criticism even more reliable and trustworthy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author wanted to show the causes and effects of economy policy during a very peculiar transition period in Republic of Croatia from the moment of its independence in the early nineties until 2005. Trough a theoretic definition of stabilization policy the author intended to obtain a framework necessary to understand the historic and economical context. In order to explain major economical and non-economical causes of the state of Croatian economy the author uses different graphs of major macro economical indicator and provides their interpretation. An overview of political acts such as state stabilization programs and their implementation were necessary in order to detect main problems of the new situation in Croatian economy as well as what caused it. Furthermore, the author compared the results of the implemented stabilization policy and put them in an international context by contrasting Croatia and its economy with economical results of similar transition countries in order to obtain an objective picture. Throughout the paper the author portrayed economical spectrum of problems which existed and concluded they still exist in Croatian economy either because of the burdens of the past or because of a lack of vision of progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the results of empirical research examining history teachers' opinions on teaching recent history, and on the revocation of a moratorium on teaching former Yugoslavia's recent history in Serbian minority schools in the Croatian Danube region. The research was conducted in 2003, involving a sample of 29 primary and secondary history teachers in both the majority and minority programmes in the two counties affected by the moratorium. The post-war divide is evident from the differences in teachers' opinions regarding the moratorium's revocation and the presentation of minority history in history teaching. On a general level however, when the history of the Croats and Serbs was not discussed, most of the teachers advocated a liberal concept of history teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South‐Eastern Europe only recently was required to adapt their domestic law to adhere to European Union legislations and standards. As such, it forms an excellent case study on how and to what extent the 'Europeanisation' process is interacting with the development of special education needs (SEN) policy, particularly focusing on autistic children. This scoping review mapped autism and special education policies of Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia and investigated how Europeanisation interacted with autism and educational policy through a path dependence analysis. Our research shows that education for children with special needs started with segregation during communist time. EU accession since then has influenced disability policies and contributed to establishing inclusive education for all students. One particular Romanian policy resulted in children with special needs not having to compete with typical children for school submission. Ultimately, the majority of policies addressed special education needs in general. Only Romania adopted specific autism policy. Inclusive education is being developed in all countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of home bias in trade is considered as one of six main puzzles in international economics. The measurement of the average intra-national distance has become the crucial issue in estimating the home bias in goods trade for countries with no internal trade data. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how different internal distance measurement affects home bias in trade. The results of the analysis indicate that sub-unit based weighted measures perform better in the assessment of Croatia’s internal distance than area based and measures based on relation to neighbour countries. In estimating the model, we use data on import values for Croatia according to standard gravity theory. Regression analysis corroborates theoretical assumptions regarding the impact of geographical distance of countries and transport costs on bilateral trade flows; imports from world are positively correlated with the GDP of imported countries and negatively correlated with the distance between them. The values of home bias variable for Croatia’s total imports were slightly higher than results obtained from previous explorations for EU countries meaning that there is still place for Croatia’s deeper integration into EU trade flows. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main objective of this paper was to determine whether there is a Procurement Plan for 2016, on the website of local and regional self-government units in the Republic of Croatia. After having applied the method of analysis, the hypothesis that local and regional self-governments in the Republic of Croatia fulfilled their legal obligation to publish the procurement plan to websites, was not confirmed. The research results show that all counties except for Međimurje County have a Procurement Plan for 2016 available on their respective websites. Out of the total of 127 cities in the Republic of Croatia, ten cities (Belišće, Čabar, Donji Miholjac, Drniš, Ilok, Imotski, Nova Gradiška, Pleternica, Popovača and Vrgorac) did not publish their Procurement Plans for 2016. In addition, the survey results show that 61 municipalities do not have a published Procurement Plan for 2016 on their respective websites. This study may contribute to the knowledge of the local and regional self- government units' websites contents in the Republic of Croatia, and encourage the employees to comply with the legal obligation to publish the procurement plan on their websites for the purpose of conducting transparent procurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper addresses issues relating to the protection of disabled persons, a particularly vulnerable social category, with accent on the implementation of the National Disabled Persons Strategy in the Republic of Croatia in the period from 2007 to 2015. The author provides an abbreviated overview of different modalities for the protection of disabled persons by listing the guaranteed constitutional and legal rights of disabled persons exercised individually or through membership in the Croatian Union of Associations of Disabled Persons or in the Croatian Union of Associations of Labour Invalids through their various local associations on the territory of Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Migration & Ethnic Themes: MET / Migracijske i Etničke Teme is the property of Institut za istrazivanje migracija / Institute for Migration Research (IMIN) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Th e problem of sunken items is legally regulated from the begging of the navigation. For centuries sunken items were considered as abandoned things - res nullius, and each person was allowed to extract and remove them. In the middle Ages, through the institute ius naufragii each fi nder could pre-empt the property aff ected by the maritime accident or caught on the surface of the sea, at the bottom of the sea or on the seashore. Today every maritime country has its own laws which regulate defi nition, extraction, removal of the sunken items and property rights on them. Primary international legal source that regulates the problem of sunken items and authorised persons is International Convention on removal of wrecks which was adopted only in 2007. In this paper author analyses the course of legal editing of sunken items and authorised persons in Croatia and in the world with special emphasis on International Convention on removal of wrecks and its infl uence and compliance of its provisions with the provisions of positive law of the Republic of Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]