Local Government
5
Large Cities
0
Capital Cities
0
Regional or State Governments
0
National Government
0
Other Institutions
1
Local Government
5
Large Cities
0
Capital Cities
0
Regional or State Governments
0
National Government
0
Other Institutions
1
Community
Capital
Zagreb
Population
4 089 400
Language
Croatian
Currency
Kuna
Indexes
Democracy
60
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Democracy
60
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Corruption Perception
60/180
Corruption Perception
Corruption Perception
60/180
Corruption Perception
Human Development
46
Very High
Human Development
Human Development
46
Very High
Human Development
World Happiness
75/156
World Happiness
World Happiness
75/156
World Happiness
Legislation Regarding the Regulation of Participatory Budgeting Experiences
Regarding regulation of participatory budgeting in Croatia, besides the national regulations that are not directly addressing participatory budgeting but allow its implementation within the existing laws of financial management for local governments, there is one example of a legislation conducted in the City of Crikvenica precisely for participative planning of annual budgets. This regulation was necessary to oblige the City Council of Crikvenica, as the institutions that votes for or against the proposed annual budget, to accept all the proposals gathered and voted on by citizens through public forums.
Outstanding Innovation
Introducing participatory budgeting in schools as part of a continuous activity within the civic education curriculum is a step forward to strengthening the idea of participatory democracy and participatory budgeting in Croatia. City of Dubrovnik is the first city to implement the project, in cooperation with its elementary schools where each school i.e. its students decide upon a certain amount of resources allocated to the school by the City. After voting for projects proposed, together with school staff, students implement the projects. Even though in some Croatian cities there is no age limitation for making proposals to the city budget thus young can participate this is not often the case so the practice of PB in City of Dubrovnik elementary schools specifically aimed at children and young is a great step to cultivating habits of participation and understanding of values of common resources in Croatia.
Principal Tendencies Detected
Due to the fact that it was not possible to reach all the cities involved in participatory budgeting in Croatia, not all relevant information is gathered, and precise significant tendencies were not identified.However, there is a general tendency in Croatian cities for a more open, transparent and approachable budget and budget planning process hence the design of online tools by public administrations in order to simplify public spending logics to citizens has risen. Even though these are not to be considered as participatory budgeting processes since they are primarily educational for the citizens and informative for the administration, they can show the understanding of public administrations in regard to participation and inclusion of citizens and they can contribute to more PB processes. What PB processes in Croatian cities show is that types of activities proposed by citizens are mostly within the jurisdiction of “utilities departments” and for public space maintenance and small investments.
Other Information
In the page 37 of this paper shows quite well the situation with PB in the city of Pazin which is also an URBACT good practice city for PB, together with Cascais and Paris. There is also an explanation of the process in Crikvenica and Rijeka. New cities, since this paper was issued, that started the PB process are the City of Trogir and next year City of Dubrovnik. Also, last year, Rijeka 2020 ltd. opened up a public call for proposals by citizens of Rijeka within European Capital of Culture 2020 project. The proposals are voted and realized by citizens of the City of Rijeka together with the team responsible for the European Capital of Culture 2020 - Rijeka2020 ltd. Has formed a “Citizens council” for which they also had a public contest for all citizens to apply. This council thus decides on the proposal to be realized within certain European Capital of Culture 2020 programs in the City of Rijeka.
