PRE-ACCESSION PROGRAMMES

European Union has through various assistance programmes during last fifteen years awarded 1,30 billion EUR for financing of projects in the Republic of Croatia. This way, 62,45 million EUR were available from OBNOVA programme. Most of funds from this amount have been spent on reconstruction projects in war-torn area.  

Following programme, CARDS 2001 – CARDS 2004, intended for strengthening administrative capacities with available funds in the amount of 260 million EUR. Both programmes were available for countries which do not have status of a candidate country for EU membership.

After obtaining candidate country status on 18th June 2004, Republic of Croatia gained access to the first generation of pre-accession programmes: PHARE, ISPA and SAPARD in the total amount of 252 million EUR for the period from 2005 to 2006.  

PHARE programme was focused on projects related to strengthening capacities for EU membership, infrastructural programmes from the field of transport and environmental protection were financed from ISPA programme, whilst SAPARD programme was used for improvement of farms and processing of agricultural products.   

Implementation of first generation of pre-accession programmes is almost finished.  Republic of Croatia gained access to new pre-accession programme IPA within the framework of new Financial Perspective.

Management of pre-accession programmes in Croatia is performed in line with Decentralized Implementation System (DIS). Within the framework of this system, national implementing authorities are responsible for management of pre-accession funds and are subjected to prior control (so-called ex-ante control) by EUD.

Part of CARDS programme intended for potential candidate countries, as well as pre-accession programmes PHARE, ISPA and IPA (IPA component I - Transitional Assistance and Institution Building and parts of  IPA III  component in all Operational Programmes: OP for Environmental Protection, OP Transport and OP Regional Competitiveness).

Documents from Official Gazette

• Framework Agreement Concerning the Participation of the Republic of Croatia in the European Community's Aid Programmes of 2002
• Framework Agreement Concerning the Participation of the Republic of Croatia in the European Community's Aid Programmes of 2005