39

Politika misao, Vol. 46, No. 5, 2009, pp. 39-53

Izvorni znanstveni rad

355.02(497.5:4-67EU)200
Received: 6 December 2009

The Europeanization of Croatias Security Discourse

DAMIR GRUBIA*
Summary
Europeanization as the process of standardization of public policies in order
to provide a common ground for the new modus operandi in politics and of the
polity itself requires an overall reshaping of the political discourse in the acceding countries during the process of EU accession. This means the reshaping
of the basic political concepts and political paradigms under way in one country. Security is one of the main concepts upon which the existence of a polity is based. The way in which security is conceived determines the political
strategy, political tactics and political activities pertinent to the goal set up and
formulated in a security concept. Croatia, as an acceding country, needs to refurbish its basic political values, and security certainly falls within this frame.
Croatia adopted its National Security Strategy in 2002 and this security concept was an obvious product of concrete circumstances, experiences and political discourse of the time. As the author asserts, the concept of security laid
down in this security strategy belongs to an obsolete frame of mind, arising
from a traumatic decade of ethnic wars, nationalism and a controversial transition. Croatia has emerged from the post-conflict traumatic experience and the
period of an authoritarian transition, in which the adaptation to new values was
slow and turbulent. The National Security Strategy of the Republic of Croatia
reflects these contradictions and controversies in its society and its international environment. This work claims that the national security concept of Croatia
relied greatly on the classical approach to state security and did not reflect the
latest development in the field of strategic thinking. As an example, the author
points to the gap between the Croatian national security concept and its basic
values and the concept of human security, as laid down in the UNDP basic
documents on human development. In addition, it did not reflect the concept
of cooperative security that requires from a nation to work in an international
context in order to avoid transnational threats. Croatia needs the Europeanization of the security discourse and the reformulation of a new National Security
Strategy, pertinent to its membership in the NATO and in the EU.
Key words: Europeanization, National Security Strategy of Croatia, security
discourse, NATO, EU
*

Damir Grubia, Professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, and director of the Centre for European Studies of the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb.

40

Grubia, D., The Europeanization of Croatias Security Discourse

Europeanization is a process faced by Croatia since its inception as an independent

and, declaratively, democratic country. However, for a long time Europeanization
was treated in Croatia as an anachronism, since Croatia has always been part of
Europe and therefore it should have been accepted as a member of the European
family as it was, without any prior adaptation to the European Union (Tuman,
2009; Sanader, 2000).
This myth of returning to Europe, established not only in Croatia but also
in other Eastern European countries after the fall of Communism, was demystified by the European Union itself through three waves: the first wave came with
the first criteria ever prescribed by the EU to new candidate states, known as the
Copenhagen Criteria of 1993 and, subsequently, with the Madrid Criteria added in
1995; the second wave came with the second generation of European agreements,
namely with the Stabilisation and Association Process launched in 1999 that established a more detailed list of criteria for candidates qualifying for accession to the
EU. Eventually, the third wave accompanied Croatias accession process starting
in 2005, embodied in specific criteria named benchmarks and, consequently, the
whole process entered into life under the terminus technicus of benchmarking.
We do not intend to dwell upon the specific aspects of these three generations
of criteria which, as Grabbe notes (2007), form another specific aspect of adapting
new candidates to EU membership called conditionality that has been imposed
upon states and societies aspiring to join the EU. We also do not want to dwell upon
the dilemmas of Europeanization, a process that already encompasses a whole new
field of studies. Here we take for granted the basic assumption of Europeanization
as it was expressed in the conceptualisation of this process undertaken by Landrech
(1994, 1996), who gave a clear and comprehensible definition of the process, taking into consideration its incrementalism and the reorientation of the direction and
shape of politics to the extent that the political and economic dynamics of the European Union become part of the organisational logic of national politics and policymaking. However, this reorientation, or changes in the pattern of politics and policy-making, cannot proceed without a reorientation in the basic values and attitudes
on politics and policies, comprising the whole universum of political life, or better
to say, all manifestations of a polity. In this context, an important role lies in the reorientation of political ideas and values that shape a single polity as well. The mode
of production of politics and policy-making, in other words the art of government,
has to fit into newly established standards of a multi-level governance system that
replaces the old governmental mode of operation, both nationally and internationally (in this case on the regional, European scale).
This requests an adaptational change of values, ideas and basic assumptions on
what politics is, what the polity itself is and how this polity functions for what and
whose sake and for what purpose.

Politika misao, Vol. 46, No. 5, 2009, pp. 39-53

41

Therefore, if we want to make a sound value assessment of Europeanization in

the specific case of Croatia on the road to the EU, we have to dissect the many faces
of Europeanization and analyse three basic aspects of the process of Europeanization affecting Croatian society and politics. The first aspect or question is how
Europeanization will work in the case of the Croatian political system that has been
heavily affected by a whole decade of authoritarian rule (1990-2000), when and
where democracy was only a facade covering the tumultuous process of corruptive
and predatory transition from Communism (in fact, socialism as a lower phase of
development leading to Communism) to liberal capitalism, and which obstacles it
will meet on its way, since Croatia is lagging behind other Eastern European transition countries in achieving democratic standards and values. Secondly, we have to
ask ourselves about the main incentives for the introduction of the governance model in public administration and policy-making within the Croatian political system
in order to fit into the European modus operandi in politics, starting from policymaking, i.e. with the field of public policies their formulation, adoption, implementation, evaluation and feed-back. Thirdly, there is a question of which new institutions, procedures and values will enhance and strengthen Croatian democracy and
its development. However, all these questions cannot be even approached without
a thorough refurbishing and reconceptualization of political values and ideas that
shaped Croatias recent past.
One of these ideas that needs to be reconceptualized is the concept of security,
a basic concept in politics. One of the first roles of the political community is to
provide security from external and internal threats for its members. As Machiavelli
asserts, the role of the State, irrespective of the fact whether it is a monarchy or a
republic, is to protect its subjects (in case of a monarchy) or citizens (in case of a
republic) against dangers coming from the outside, but also against dangers coming
from the inside, i.e. from the ambition of powerful people to subjugate their fellow citizens, from the instability caused by civil riots and wars and various forms of
disarray from poor governmental performances to sectarianism and partisanship
that represent a major threat to the whole state. In modern societies the concept of
security embraces both internal and external security, defined by an UN study of
1986 as a state in which countries think that there is no danger of military attack, political pressure or economic coercion, so that they can develop and progress freely.
The fact that each polity needs a clearly defined concept of national security
which reflects the basic values of the society and lays the ground for determinate
security policies became clear in democratic societies after World War II. The first
democratic polity ever to develop the concept of external and internal security and
adopt it as a national strategy was the United States of America, through its National
Security Act of 1947. However, the concept of state security as a special field of
activity addressing internal threats preceded the American concept of national secu-

42

Grubia, D., The Europeanization of Croatias Security Discourse

rity. State security was a major concern in non-democratic polities, i.e. in the Communist state in Russia and the fascist state in Germany. The concept of national security, as Lippman described it (1943), should treat foreign threats as major threats
to the security of a nation, while internal threats in democratic societies can arise
only from subversive penetration of foreign threats into the national territory.
Under the influence of the American approach, democratic polities developed
their national security strategies and, after the collapse of Communism, post-communist countries followed the path of more developed democratic polities formulating their own national security strategies.
Croatia was one of these countries. However, due to the war that accompanied the post-Yugoslav transition, Croatia was a latecomer among transition countries that had already developed their own national strategies. The National Security Strategy of the Republic of Croatia was not adopted before 2002, while in other
Central and Eastern European transition countries the reform of the security sector
was undertaken immediately after the collapse of Communism. For example, Poland adopted its own national security strategy in 1992, followed by the Visegrad
Group countries and the Baltic countries that completed their reform of the security sector by 1997, in the wake of NATO accession. Croatia was late partially due
to the consequences of the war that ended in 1995 with the Dayton Agreement and
Croatian military liberation of the territories occupied by the rebel Serbs, and partially to the authoritarian regime, installed during and after the war, that mostly relied on old security structures (i.e. the old security personnel recycled and integrated into the authoritarian regime led by President Tuman).
Only after the demise of President Tuman and the 2000 parliamentary elections, which brought the democratic opposition to power, was it possible to overcome the pattern of political power that relied on old security structures that turned
democratic in appearance, but still maintained control over the society, albeit this
time for a new master Tumans nationalist regime. The first and still the only
National Security Strategy of the Republic of Croatia was passed by the Parliament
in 2002, and it is our task to analyse it in order to conclude whether this strategy
suits the society in a process of consolidating democracy, meeting the conditionality
of the EU and preparing to share its political and ideal values.
Therefore, we are going to describe and analyse the document in order to make
an overall assessment of how the security consciousness of the society is fit to
join the European concept of democratic security and to share its values. It is our
hypothesis to be proven in this paper that Croatias approach to security needs
to be urgently Europeanized, i.e. to undergo the process of Europeanization as the
reorientation of the direction and shape of politics (and political values), to the extent that the political and economic dynamics of the European Union becomes part

Politika misao, Vol. 46, No. 5, 2009, pp. 39-53

43

of the organizational logic of national politics and public policies. In particular, this
applies to security policies, whose goals and priorities are formulated in National
Security strategies.
Therefore, we will start with the dissection of the only existing National Security Strategy of the Republic of Croatia, the one of 2002. The first concept to be
analysed is, obviously, the notion of national security itself. The definition of security in this document is the first step to be approached: national security is conceived, firstly, as a realized or projected state of security; secondly, it is a functional area of activities of different security institutions, and, thirdly, a system of
interconnected security institutions. Furthermore, the main concerns of the Croatian
National Security Strategy is to safeguard freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity in the framework of internationally accepted arrangements, the political and
social stability of the society, the functioning of the state of law, internal order and
personal security of its citizens. Therefore, national security is defined as the state
of protection of basic values of the society and of institutions built upon them (Preamble and Paragraphs 1-3).
This definition, as we can see, reduces security to values and institutions,
while citizens are omitted from such a scheme. Citizens do not seem to be in the
centre of its preoccupation; neither is it their security to be protected from dangers,
threats and risks. The main focus is on the values which can be translated as both
normative and prescriptive on the one hand, and on institutions of the legal order
on the other. Such a definition, we can conclude at once, is reductive and suggests a
state-centric approach to security, especially in the light of contemporary debates on
how to empower citizens to guard their guardians from abuses of power and how
to overcome the parallel existence of occult centres of power in a non-transparent
twilight zone alongside the institutions, values and processes of a transparent and
constitutionally democratic society.
The state-centric paradigm, detected in the Preamble and the first paragraphs
of the Croatian National Security Strategy, can be understood as a product of the
recent past, i.e. of the specific development of the Croatian transition from Communism to democracy through an authoritarian, nationalist interlude that lasted from
1991 to 2000.
The Croatian security concept was developed, articulated and formulated on
the basis of such a reduced political conception and mindset. Instability is seen
as a threat arising from part of the surroundings, which means from the regional context consisting of the countries that formed the former Yugoslavia (Paragraphs 3-14), and the majority of security risks are connected with the first phase
of Croatian transition, characterised by the armed aggression with the goal of preventing Croatian independence. The same applies to all forms of economic insta-

44

Grubia, D., The Europeanization of Croatias Security Discourse

bilities, linking them also to the fact that Croatia was caught in the web of an aggressive war, elegantly neglecting the other side of Croatian first-phase transition,
such as the mischiefs of the Croatian privatization process, characterised by Kregar
(1999) as a result of predatory privatization, political corruption and a deliberate
economic policy that favoured imports and not exports, in order to create a class of
new owners and entrepreneurs (the so-called 200 Croatian families to whom ownership should be transferred, as President Tuman unveiled in 1993).
In the second part of the document, titled The Values and Interests of the Republic of Croatia (Paragraphs 15-23), the main accent is on preserving democracy
and democratic institutions, the rule of law, economic prosperity and social justice,
all of them listed here as important interests. The third part of the National Security Strategy states that military threats have decreased as they appear nowadays (in
the beginning of the 2000s) compared with the 1990s, but a set of clear threats finds
its provenience in the transitional problems met by the states in the area of Eastern
and South-Eastern Europe. Inevitable consequences of the process of political and
economical transition in building parliamentary democracy and market economy
are, in the first place, the establishment of dysfunctions and disorder in the state
system, followed by worsening social conditions, a drop in the living standards of
the population and conflicts between centres of power, as well as an increase in
criminal activities (Paragraphs 24-38). All this is exposed within the section titled
Challenges, risks and threats to the Republic of Croatia. The conclusion of this
superficial analysis reads that the states which go through crisis caused by the process of transition are vulnerable to internal destabilization that can lead to political
changes, leading further to various aspects of interstate revanchism, and thus to an
increase in interstate conflicts (Paragraph 28).
The problems of transition are thus ascribed to other states, while problems
that were generated in the process of transition of the Republic of Croatia were seen
mostly as dysfunctions of the economical system, and as results of negative demographic developments, the decrease in the participation of the working population
and the high rate of unemployment. Besides the lack of self-criticism towards its
own polity, the Strategy stresses the harm made to the system as a threat, while citizens are falling out of this scheme the main preoccupation lies with the system
as a whole, not with citizens as actors of the political system whose freedom, wellbeing and prosperity are the pillars of a democratic polity.
The fourth section, titled The Security Concept (Paragraphs 39-40), is obviously meant to explain the security concept itself, but the reader cannot find any
argumentation or rational explanation that would substantiate the title and offer
a workable definition of the security concept. While the security concept is not
defined, we can find the assertion that the security concept defines the basic pro-

Politika misao, Vol. 46, No. 5, 2009, pp. 39-53

45

gram of activities in the field of national security of the Republic of Croatia. In

addition, instead of the definition of the security concept, we here find a declaration
that reads as follows: The security concept is based on the strategic assumption
that national security is an area of activities by which the survival and the premises
of the development of the society are ensured, in relation to other international actors. It is not quite clear how this security concept is based upon the strategic
assumption and, moreover, what this strategic assumption might be. Not to mention that ensuring the survival and the premises of the development of the society
in relation to other international actors apparently reduces security only to the field
of foreign policy and to the activity of defusing dangers coming from the range of
international actors, not identifying precisely who the international actors causing these threats are, thus leaving the impression that all international actors might
be treated, indiscriminately, as trouble-makers or as causes of uneasiness when state
security is concerned.
Another confusion arises from statements such as this: In the methodological
sense, the security concept, presented here as the definition of the security goals of
the Republic of Croatia and principles within which endeavours in the field of national security are achieved with the use of measures and instruments of security
policy.... The reader seems to be caught in a vicious circle of high-expert jargon,
finding himself/herself embroiled in an apparently sophisticated, but completely
empty discourse lacking precise definitions, categories and concepts.
The security goals of the Republic of Croatia are enumerated in Paragraph
41 and they comprise three points: firstly, the establishment, development and implementation of effective policy, measures, activities and institutions in the field of
security adequate in contents with the request to successfully overcome current
and future security risks and threats for the Republic of Croatia; secondly, the inclusion in international security integrations and arrangements with other democratic states and common building of positive international security surroundings at
the regional, as well as at the global level; and thirdly, the development of a stable
and economically progressive society that in the long term will be prospective, able
to build up and maintain security mechanisms and resources and successfully react
to security challenges, risks and threats.
Such an enumeration of goals might lead to the conclusion that the development of a stable and economically progressive society has to be only a vehicle
for the long-term ability to build up and maintain effective security mechanisms,
suggesting that the purpose of the development of society is the development and
maintenance of the security system, putting security forward as a goal in itself and
not seeing it as a variable in the function of achieving the higher goal of a free and
secure life in democracy (cf. Robinson, 2008; Griffith and OCallaghan, 2002).

46

Grubia, D., The Europeanization of Croatias Security Discourse

Paragraphs 42-48 deal with the principles of achieving national security. These
principles, defined as basic conceptual frameworks for organizing and acting of
the institution of national security, organized with this purpose, are the following:
first, the principle of complexity and multi-componentiality of national security;
second, the principle of conceptual and legal arrangement of the field of national
security; third, the principle of integral management and control over the functions
of national security; fourth, the principle of active involvement and effective participation (but only within the international efforts for building a propitiatory security
environment); fifth, the principle of a healthy and equal partnership (with whom?
D.G.), and sixth, regional focusing on the efforts (what efforts? D.G.).
Paragraph 47 deserves special attention: the principle of healthy and equal partnership, as quoted, omits to mention who the partners in this supposed partnership
are, but a clarification follows: A healthy partnership implies the establishment of
relations of cooperation and trust, and, furthermore, loyalty of every participant to
commonly accepted methods and goals. Trust among whom? Loyalty to whom? Is
the partnership mentioned here a partnership of citizens, civil society, epistemic
communities, the public, or somebody or something else? The ambiguity of this
paragraph is accompanied by a warning: Equality does not mean a complete parity in relation to the participation in common bodies or a uniform contribution in all
common endeavours. Such wording might result in the logical conclusion that the
authors of this document do not have a very clear idea of what a democratic society is, of the role of the civil society in it, and of the central role of citizens in such
a society. The insufficiency in articulating a security policy also derives from this
sentence, since the concept of security is vague and the main concern is how to preserve the system, security institutions and security actors, and to express concern
about possible partnerships with unnamed partners (presumably partners from the
civil society) and their alleged disloyalty to commonly accepted methods and
goals. Here we have to express our discomfort about the concept of loyalty to
methods, which can be translated into loyalty to existing practices, developed by
the security apparatus itself!
Eventually, the document concludes with a short elaboration of the security
policy of the Republic of Croatia (Paragraphs 49-76). It lists areas and instruments and establishes principal preferences integration into NATO, into the European Union and into the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). Moreover, among the instruments, things like relations with neighbours, regional
cooperation and cooperation with international organizations, weapon control and
confidence building measures are mentioned. The notions of defence and internal
security of Croatia are mentioned in the final paragraphs (76-77), titled Conclusions, reducing internal security to policing, i.e. to the activity of internal security

Politika misao, Vol. 46, No. 5, 2009, pp. 39-53

47

services the police in the first place. This can be evidenced in Paragraph 75, which
states: The fight against internal threats is based on the integral approach, founded
on the organizational coordination of all relevant components of the system of national security, for the sake of achieving the necessary integration in acting against
security risks. The system of internal security of the Republic of Croatia should
aspire, as much as possible, to achieve cooperation and connections with identical
systems of other states which are linked by common security challenges. As we
are trying to decipher this phraseology, the logical implication that comes out from
this galimatias is that the integral approach can be reduced to the organizational
coordination of all relevant components of the national security system for the sake
of... achieving integration!
According to Kerr (2003), the forma mentis of the state-centric approach to
security consists of insistence on the systemic efficiency of the security sector, concern for the functioning of security institutions and services, and priority of the
system towards non-systemic threats coming in the form of such trouble-makers
as the civil society or citizens themselves, who might obstruct the efficiency of
the system in confronting challenges, risks and threats. In the case of the Croatian
National Security Strategy, it is blatant that the security of the state and of the security system is the main concern, while the security of citizens is only secondary. Moreover, the cautious suspicion towards partners in the security policy denotes a clear lack of confidence in the democratic society institutions. Therefore, we
could easily conclude that the existing National Security Strategy of the Republic
of Croatia is an anachronistic document, since it is based on the prevalence of the
state-centric security concept instead on contemporary achievements in the security discourse, as they have been discussed and introduced in the political discourse
of modern societies as early as in 1994, through the concept of human security, as
elaborated by the UN Development Program and later on in the theory of national
security (Cvrtila, Grizold, Tatalovi, 2008).
As an overall conclusion, we might identify four salient points.
First, the National Security Strategy of the Republic of Croatia passed in 2002
by the Croatian Parliament is really an anachronistic document, not even written
from the context of the actual time, because important achievements in the security
philosophy that occurred during the 1990s are absent from the document.
Second, the concept of security promoted by this document is a retrograde
one, based on state security and the preservation of the security system, security
mechanism and security actors, leaving aside the main concern, i.e. the concern for
the security of citizens, the members of society and not only subjects of the state,
but political subjects tout court.

48

Grubia, D., The Europeanization of Croatias Security Discourse

Third, this concept certainly does not encourage the process of Europeanization of the Croatian society, because it passes in silence over the concept of human
and cooperative security, not even mentioning them. This is more disconcerting as
Croatia submitted only a year later (in 2003) its application to become a member
of the EU.
Fourth, this concept and its misfit, which is not even being superseded by a
new National Security Strategy, suggests that Croatia on its way to the EU is still a
society that in some fields is not ready for the process of Europeanization, because
it sticks to old-thinking and obsolete concepts that are treated by other democratic
societies as anachronisms. As an example we can quote the National Security Strategy of the Republic of Moldova (of 2008), a state certainly standing behind Croatia
in the queue for EU membership. Moldova adopted the National Security Strategy
which incorporated the human security concept and appeared to be more modern
and Europeanized than Croatia. How can this be explained? Why is Croatia in
some fields open to Europeanization and ready to undergo this process, while in
other fields it is so obstinate and persistent in old practices?
During the 1990s two parallel processes were opened, affecting Central and
Eastern European countries: one was the Security Sector Reform (SSR), and the
other was the introduction of democratic control of armed and security forces in line
with NATO principles and the NATO accession process. The first process intended
to rebuild the state security sector that emerged in Eastern Europe at the beginning
of the 1990s. It started from the premises that a dysfunctional security sector is unable to provide security for the society under democratic principles. Relying upon
the concept of state-centric security, this security sector and security policies appeared to be the source of widespread insecurity by itself. The SSR aimed at eliminating the unreformed or misconstructed security sector as the decisive obstacle to
the promotion of democracy, sustainable development and even peace. Eventually,
the SSR had to rebuild and reorganize security institutions, and sometimes even
dissolve specific security services as non-statutory or as semi-independent centres
of power, distant from democratic control and parliamentary overseeing. Thus, the
main aim of the SSR in transition countries emerging from the collapse of Communism was to introduce the principles of democratic governance in the security
sector. This could have been done only by creating an efficient and effective provision of combined state and human security within the framework of democratic
governance. The main instruments of such reform are, in the first place, but not exclusively: secret services reform, intelligence reform, police reform and defence reform. This had to be accompanied by a thorough judicial reform, prison reform, and
right-financing and right-sizing reform, as well as by bringing new measures aimed
at strengthening civilian management and democratic accountability of the security

Politika misao, Vol. 46, No. 5, 2009, pp. 39-53

49

apparatus. Finally, we could conclude with Haenggi and Bryden (2004): the SSR,
although it is according to some critics an evolving and contested concept, has
emerged as a key concept, which has been increasingly accepted. Therefore we can
conclude that it is a precondition for a real security that is not only state security, but
also human security, good governance, human rights, and the achievement of positive conflict-reconversion into cooperation patterns.
Croatia remained beside this process. However, the purpose of this paper is
not to analyse the comprehensive democratic performance of the society. We have
to take for granted that since 2000 Croatia has done consistent efforts to overcome
the decade of only formal democracy, that was only a faade for the establishment
of an authoritarian and undemocratic model of politics, whose main pillars were
former security officers turned nationalists, Communist hardliners turned patriots,
and the misguided crowds fooled by nationalist demagogy supported by a pseudodemocratic faade.
Unfortunately, these contradictions are well reflected in the Croatian National
Security Strategy adopted in 2002 and not yet amended and adapted to a new European Union membership prospect.
If we compare the Croatian National Security Strategy with similar documents
approved in other countries with a similar past (i.e. former Communist countries,
transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe), we will see that, for instance, in
the Hungarian National Security Strategy of 1999 challenges, risks and threats are
treated from a different angle. Among these threats, new forms of threats are elaborated in conformity with the concept of human security, such as organized crime,
illegal economy and corruption even political and religious extremism, while in
the Polish Strategy of National Security of 2003 (in the second version, as well as
the Hungarian one of 1999) special emphasis was put on the economic foundations
of national security and the necessity to fight corruption and abuses of power, which
represent a major danger to the country.
How come that security strategies articulated in other transition countries are
void of a state-centric approach and appropriately furnished with the human security approach, not only as a trendy fashion, but also as a basic choice of these societies? How come that security thinking has evolved in these countries faster than in
Croatia? Some reasons have already been mentioned, and they are linked with the
unfortunate decade of simulating democracy in the 1990s. However, this unfortunate coincidence of circumstances has also caused a delay in the start of the Europeanization process. For instance, while the Program of European Studies at the
university level was introduced in Central and Eastern European countries as early
as in 1993, in Croatia the first courses on European Union Law and the Politics of
European Integration were introduced as late as 2003, respectively at the Faculty of

50

Grubia, D., The Europeanization of Croatias Security Discourse

Law and the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Zagreb. Such a delay
is not accidental it is coincidental, because it coincides with the general lagging
behind the schedule of transition.
For these reasons Croatia represents an exception that marks a clear difference
between this country and other transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Because of stubbornly refusing to accept that European Union membership has to
be earned and that it has to make substantial adaptations in order to meet the Copenhagen and Madrid Criteria, as well as the criteria set forth by the Stabilization and
Association Process established in 1999, Croatia faced a more accurate screening
by the European Commission during the debate about its application for EU membership. Instead of answering a questionnaire of about 3000 questions, Croatia had
to submit answers to 4500 questions in order to get the avis. Furthermore, Croatia
started its EU membership negotiations with the European Commission with a special set of preconditions that needed to be fulfilled in order to open the chapters of
the Acquis Communautaire, namely the 27 benchmarks. As negotiations proceed,
the number of benchmarks for closing the negotiation chapters will rise to about
105. This is precisely the result of the lost ten years and of the delay of democratic
transition.
The National Security Strategy is only one of the indicators of this delayed
Croatian Europeanization. However, the Europeanization of Croatian society is a
basic prerequisite for its efficient functioning as a fully-fledged member of the European Union. Besides these initial misunderstandings, Croatia now has to reduce
the gap and quickly recuperate the time lost in the 1990s. Europeanization must
permeate all aspects of Croatian political life. As we tried to show, Croatia is lagging behind in this field even more than in other fields. It is quite non-understandable that Croatia entered NATO in 2009 with such a National Security Strategy. It
is more non-understandable that Croatia is preparing for EU membership with such
a primitive National Security Strategy. Therefore, one of the first tasks of Croatian
political forces namely, the President of the Republic as the major guarantor and
policy-maker (jointly with the Government) in the field of foreign policy, security
and defence is to initiate the formulation of a new National Security Strategy for
Croatia.
It should, first, comprise the modern achievements of human security as elaborated by the UN in 1994. The UNDPs Human Development Report of 1994 provides a broad definition of human security, arguing that global security and its scope
should be expanded to include threats in the following seven areas:
1) economic security economic insecurity is a major threat to individuals,
not only in developing countries but in the whole world, as the global financial crisis of 2007 has shown;

Politika misao, Vol. 46, No. 5, 2009, pp. 39-53

51

2) food security, which requires that all people at all times have both physical
and economic access to basic food. This has not been a problem for the developed world yet, but the environmental crisis and global warming could
easily spread this scourge to the developed world;
3) health security, which aims at guaranteeing a minimum protection from
diseases and unhealthy life styles. Today, infectious, pandemic diseases are
as we can see on the example of H1N1flu (the so-called swine flu) a
major threat even to developed societies;
4) environmental security, which aims to protect people from the ravages of
nature and the deterioration of the natural environment, global warming
comprised;
5) personal security, which aims to protect people from physical violence,
whether from the state or external states, or from violent individuals and
sub-state actors, from abuses of power, etc.;
6) community security, which aims to protect people from the loss of traditional relationships and values and from sectarian and ethnic violence;
7) political security, which is concerned with whether people live in a society
that honours their basic human and citizen rights and human dignity. Political security also aims to eliminate the repression of individuals and groups
by governments that try to exercise control over ideas and information, and
resort to manipulation, corruption and violence.
Last but not least, Croatia needs to formulate and adopt a new National Security Strategy in the wake of joining the European Union after the ratification of the
Lisbon Treaty that lays the ground for a more intensive common security policy.
Since the concept of cooperative security is also absent from the Croatian basic
document on national security, it is clear that the adaptation to cooperative security within the European Union is a basic prerequisite for the Europeanization of
Croatian security policy and values. Time is short and Croatia is far behind the other
part of Europe in this respect. The Europeanization of the security sector is a clear
challenge, and since this is one of the most retrograde sectors in Croatian society,
much has to be done to stimulate a real change in this field.

52

Grubia, D., The Europeanization of Croatias Security Discourse

REFERENCES
Aydinli, E., Rosenau, J., 2005: Globalization Security and the Nation-State: Paradigms
in Transition, State University of New York Press, Syracuse.
Baylis, J., 1997: International Security in the Post-Cold War Era, in: Baylis, J./Smith, S.,
The Globalization of World Politics, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Bilandi, M., 1999: Security Services in Democratic Societies, Politika misao (36) 4:
134-150.
Commission on Human Security, 2003: Human Security Now, Commission on Human
Security, New York.
Donnelly, Ch., 1996: Defence transformation in the new democracies, NATO Review, 6.
Goold, B. J., Lazarus, L., 2007: Security and Human Rights, Hart, London.
Gottfried, T., 2003: Homeland Security vs. Constitutional Rights, 21st Century, New
York.
Hanggi, H., Bryden, H., 2004: Reform and Reconstruction of the Security Sector, DCAF,
Geneva.
Hanggi, H., Winkler, Th., 2003: Challenges of Security Sector Governance, DCAF &
LIT Verlag, Geneva.
Kaldor, M., 2007: Human Security, Polity, Cambridge.
Kerr, P., 2003: The Evolving Dialectics between State-centric and Human-centric Security, Australian National University, Canberra.
Krause, K., 2007: Towards a Practical Human Security Agenda, Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Geneva.
Kregar, J., 1999: Korupcija i predatorski kapitalizam, Alineja, Zagreb.
Ogorec, M., 2009: Novi oblici ugroza i nacionalna sigurnost u percepciji hrvatskih
graana, Drutvena istraivanja (18) 3: 339-353.
Paris, R., 2001: Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?, International Security (26)
2: 87-102.
Radievi, T., 2003: The New Security Strategy: International Cooperation, Crisis Management and National Defence, in: Trapans, J.A./Fluri, Ph. (eds.), Defence and
Security Sector Governance and Reform in South-East Europe: Insights and Perspectives, Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces and Centre for CivilMilitary Relations, Geneva-Belgrade.
Robinson, P., 2008: Dictionary of International Security, Polity, Cambridge.
Sanader, I., 2000: Hrvatska u meunarodnim odnosima 1990.-2000., Golden Marketing,
Zagreb.
Schnabel, A., Ehrhardt, H., 2006: Security Sector Reform and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, UN University Press, Tokio.

Politika misao, Vol. 46, No. 5, 2009, pp. 39-53

53

Strategija nacionalne sigurnosti Republike Hrvatske, Official Gazette, 32/2002.

koro Pevec, K., 2003: Nacionalna sigurnost: vodi za novinare, HND, Zagreb.
Tadjbakhsh, Sh., 2005: Human Security: The Seven Challenges of Operationalizing the
Concept, in: Human Security: 60 Minutes to Convince, UNESCO, Paris.
Tatalovi, S., 2006: Nacionalna i meunarodna sigurnost, Politika kultura, Zagreb.
Tatalovi, S., Grizold, A., Cvrtila, V., 2008: Suvremene sigurnosne politike, Golden Marketing, Zagreb.
Trapans, J.A., 1997: National Security Concepts in Central and Eastern Europe, NATO
Review, 6.
Trapans, J.A., Fluri, Ph. (eds.), 2003: Defence and Security Sector Governance and Reform in South-East Europe: Insights and Perspectives, Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces and Centre for Civil-Military Relations, Geneva-Belgrade.
Tuman, F., 2009: Hrvatska Europa Europska unija, Mate, Zagreb.

Mailing Address: Faculty of Political Science, Lepuieva 6, HR 10000 Zagreb.

E-mail: dgrubisa@fpzg.hr