Country data: Croatia

All comparisons are with the figures for 10 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

The last 2 years, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Member State authorities to address pressing priorities and affected their performance in transposing EU rules to some degree. In this context, the Commission has taken a number of extraordinary measures aimed at relieving the strain on Member States’ administrative resources. Nevertheless, it has also made clear that the Member States’ legal obligations to transpose EU directives in time remain unchanged.

Transposition deficit (percentage of all directives not transposed): 1.4% (last report: 1.2%) – an increase of 0.2 percentage points. Croatia is one of nine Member States that missed the 1% target set by the European Council.         
EU average = 1.6%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

Apart from in 2016 and 2017 when Member States had to transpose an unusually large number of directives, Croatia has performed consistently well on this criterion. However, it missed the target in last 2 years. It did not transpose 6 of the 26 of the single market directives (23%) due to have been transposed in the 6 months before the cut-off date for calculating the deficit (1 June to 30 November 2021). This shows that Croatia could organise the timely transposition of directives even better. Constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic did not help. However, transposition is an ongoing process and any let-up may result in the deficit quickly increasing.

Overdue directives: 14 (last report: 12), including 4 on environment. No directive is more than 2 years overdue.

Average delay in transposing directives: 10.1 months (last report: 10.6 months) – a slight decrease of 0.5 months. Croatia is one of 9 Member States that reduced the time taken to transpose directives in the reporting period.     
EU average = 8.6 months

Croatia managed to transpose the 2 long-overdue directives (2 years or more) that significantly contributed to its high 2020 average delay in 2020. However, of its current backlog, 6 outstanding directives that have been due for between 1 and 2 years significantly increase the average delay for this reporting period.

Conformity deficit (percentage of all directives transposed incorrectly): 1.4% (last report: 1.8%) – a marked decrease of 0.4 percentage points. Croatia is no longer among the Member States with the highest conformity deficit.        
EU average = 1.3%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

The number of new infringement proceedings that the Commission has launched against Member States for incorrectly transposing single market directives has more than halved in 2 years. Nevertheless, the number of ongoing cases is still high. With 14 directives presumed to have been incorrectly transposed, Croatia is now close to the EU average deficit.

All comparisons are with the figures for 1 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

Pending single market cases: 22 (4 new cases and 8 cases closed, including 4 on transport; last report: 26 pending cases) – a decrease of 4 cases and below the EU average number of cases.
EU average = 27 cases

After a steady and understandable increase since Croatia’s accession to the EU in 2014, the number of cases fell by 15% in the last reporting period.

The Commission launched 120 new cases against Member States in the reporting period (besides those for late transposition), and these were still pending on 1 December 2021. A total of 4 cases were launched against Croatia, which is in line with the EU average. Croatia is also in line with the EU average in terms of cases that have been resolved since December 2020 (8).

Problematic sectors: the environment (6 cases); energy (5 cases). Together, these make up 50% of all pending cases.

Average case duration: 33.9 months for the 21 single market cases not yet sent to the European Court of Justice (last report: 23.5 months) – a marked increase of 10.4 months – the longest-ever average case duration for Croatia but still well below the EU average.
EU average = 42.8 months

The average duration of Croatian cases has increased by 34% in the last 3 years. However, Croatia is one of 6 Member States whose cases take less, on average, than the 36-month indicative target. Only 4 of Croatia’s 21 cases are more than 5 years old (the oldest one, on air transport, has been running for 7 years); 13 cases have lasted between 1 and 5 years; 4 cases (whose average duration is less than 12 months) have been launched in the reporting period.

Time taken to comply with Court rulings: no single market case is yet at this stage of the procedure (last report: same).               
EU average = 46.8 months

Evolution of infringement cases

Performance – Croatia performed very well.

• Results for three indicators were above the EEA average, two of which were in the top five for the respective areas.
• Croatia noticeably improved its performance on three indicators.
• Counterparts satisfaction decreased for both survey-related indicators.

• Caseload – large
  Submitted cases: 117 (41 in 2020)
  Received cases: 16 (24 in 2020)

• Cases not accepted: 46 (34 in 2020)

• Resolution rate: 93% (100% in 2020)
• Handling time (as home centre)
  Reply in 7 days: 100% (96% in 2020) – very good
  Cases prepared in 30 days: 94% (100% in 2020) –  very good
  Solutions accepted within 7 days: 93% (96% in 2020 ) –  very good

• Cases not accepted within 30 days: 87% (74% in 2020) - good

• Handling time (as lead centre)
  Cases accepted within 7 days:  100% (95% in 2020) – very good
  Cases closed in 10 weeks:  93% (82% in 2020) – very good
• Staffing level
  Urgent requiring action

In 2022, the average payment delay (the time exceeding the legal or contractually agreed payment terms) by Croatian public authorities was 15 days.

The average number of days needed for a business to have its invoices paid by other businesses (business-to-business payments) was 49.50 days.

Note: A typical (mid-ranking) EU country is used for the EU average for all indicators except the publication rate. Due to delays in data availability, publication rate results are based on 2020 data.

Note: The EU restrictiveness indicator (EURI) measures the level of restrictiveness for the cross-border provision of services and the right of establishment for seven groups of professional services with a high share in EU firms’ intermediate consumption or cross-border mobility. The level of restrictiveness is measured on a scale from 0 (least restrictive) to 6 (most restrictive).