Priority dossiers under the Croatian EU Council Presidency

Briefing 19-12-2019

For the first time since joining the European Union in 2013, Croatia will hold the rotating Council Presidency from 1 January to 30 June 2020. Croatia is a parliamentary, representative democratic republic, where the Prime Minister of Croatia is the head of government in a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government and the President of Croatia. Legislative power is vested in the Croatian Parliament. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Parliament adopted the current Constitution of Croatia on 22 December 1990 and decided to declare independence from Yugoslavia on 25 May 1991. The Croatian Parliament is the unicameral representative body of the citizens of the Republic of Croatia. Under the terms of the Croatian Constitution, the ‘Sabor’ represents the people and is vested with legislative power. The Sabor is composed of 151 members elected for a four-year term based on direct, universal and equal suffrage by secret ballot. Seats are allocated according to the Croatian Parliament electoral districts: 140 members of the parliament are elected in multi-seat constituencies, 8 from the minorities and 3 from the Croatian diaspora. Since 19 October 2016, the Prime Minister of Croatia is Mr Andrej Plenković. There are four deputy prime ministers: Davor Božinović, Zdravko Marić, Damir Krstičević and Predrag Štromar. The government ministers are from the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Croatian People's Party - Liberal Democrats (HNS), with two further ministers being independent politicians. The Croatian Democratic Union (Croatian: Hrvatska demokratska zajednica or HDZ, literally Croatian Democratic Community) is a liberal conservative political party and the main centre-right political party in Croatia. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Croatia, along with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP). It is currently the largest party in the Sabor with 55 seats.