Paper Titles & Abstracts

Co-ordination at the national level is an essential part of the EU policy process. The purpose of this article is to analyse the effects of the EU pre-accession programmes on the development of national level structures for the co-ordination of EU funds in Croatia. The article is based on an in-depth case study of the Croatian co-ordination structures for EU funding which comprised a literature review and semi-structured interviews with key officials, stakeholders and experts. The main finding was that pre-accession assistance played a decisive role in the establishment and early support of national co-ordination structures however systemic change in the state sector was not achieved and the new institutions were often overpowered by domestic opposition structures. The empirical part of the article rests on the case study of the Croatian Central State Office for Development Strategy and Co-ordination of EU Funds (CODEF). The article provides useful lessons for national and EU policy-makers from the Croatian experience which could guide future policy-making and programming. It is probably the first to analyse exclusively the case of national co-ordination structures in Croatia.