A Fight For Counties

The bill aimed at settling the issue of local self-management and county regions has produced a real storm in Croatia. The government has proposed a two-degree system of local self-management: the present municipalities, as the basic units, and counties, as the traditional units of local administration. Sixteen counties were proposed, while the organization of the city of Zagreb is to be regulated by a special law. The publishing of the bill gave rise to a lot of criticism, requests and new proposals.

Serious analysts have not been surprised neither by the proposals nor by the fierce reactions. The moves of the Croatian leadership as well as the imposed institutional solutions show that it aims for a centralization and concentration of power. The counties are primarily concerned with the possibility of efficient governing from the centre. This is also confirmed by the fact that counties are not planned to have independent jurisdiction over any area. They have been counting more on the transfer of authority from the Republic and the performance of the tasks of the state administration. Therefore, the authorities have not been overly concerned with local self-management.

The intentions of the authorities are very clear, when considering the municipalities with majority Serbian population. Previous statements of Vladimir Seks, Vice-President of the Croatian Parliament that Serbs can not have a majority in any of the counties have been confirmed with this statement. Eleven municipalities with majority Serbian population, which were given special status and a broad-based self-management on the basis of the constitutional law enacted in the Croatian Parliament in December 1991, have been scattered around 5 counties.

Thus the Croatian policy towards the Serbian population has been confirmed once again, considerably aggravating the conflict. However, the surprising aspect concerns the attitude towards international obligations. Namely, Dr. Tudjman gave guarantees in a special letter he addressed to Badinter's Commission, the Chairman of the EC Council of Ministers J. Pinheiro and to Lord Carrington (on 13.1.1991) that Croatia is ready to "totally change all the provisions of Act II of the Hague Document". "Areas in which persons belonging to a national or ethnic group constitute a majority, will have special autonomy status", the mentioned document reads.

Special status, among other things requires the existence of a legislative body, an administrative structure which includes a regional police force and a judiciary.

The constitutional law of the Croatian Parliament does not provide for regional autonomy of these municipalities, which has been understood as reluctance on the part of the authorities to fulfill their obligations. It was only after the president of the Republic of Croatia issued additional guarantees that the recognition of the twelve EC countries ensued. However, there have still been no signs that the authorities are ready to fulfill their obligations, a fact of which the European states have already reminded the Croatian leadership.

The Croatian public has been systematically made to believe that Serbian territorial and political autonomy cannot be recognized and that no "concessions" will be given to the Serbs. It seems now that Tudjman has consented to something which Croatia finds unacceptable. Apart from this, we should not forget that rebellious Serbs are no longer satisfied even with this. They no longer wish to live in Croatia. Their staunchest allies are now abandoning them and they are in danger of confronting themselves with the question of what they have fought for at all. Many have known the answer all along, and it will be painful for them, they will vote for other people's interests and against their neighbours with whom they will continue to live.

The sovereign and independent state of Croatia is threatening to turn into a corida. The consequences will manifest themselves through social and economic poverty, which is more likely to produce a totalitarian system than a democratic one.