Petar Juršić: ideas and stories

Croatia's budget: readable, not open to input

5 min read

Croatia publishes a decent budget but gives citizens almost no say in making it

Hook

Croatia scored 67 out of 100 for budget transparency in 2023, 62 in 2025, and 17 out of 100 for public participation in both.

Claim

International Budget Partnership (IBP), Open Budget Survey (OBS), Croatia. Both country pages and the 2023 PDF were opened on 2026-11-04.

OBS 2023 (9th edition, 125 countries, documents and events through 31 December 2022):

  • Transparency 67/100; ranked 24th of 125; global average 45; 61 or above is treated as enough to support informed debate. Two documents reported on the page: Mid-Year Review 33 and Citizens Budget 42 (fiscal year 2022). The note’s “up from 64 in 2021” comes from a search snippet (2021 score 64, rank 25) and was not reopened.
  • Public participation 17/100, “few opportunities”; global average 15. By stage: formulation 0, approval 55, implementation 25, audit 0.
  • Oversight 63/100.
  • The Croatian questionnaire was completed by the Institute of Public Finance, reviewed by an anonymous independent expert and by a Ministry of Finance representative.

OBS 2025 (10th edition, 82 countries, documents and events through 31 December 2024; as of 2026-11-04):

  • Transparency 62/100, participation 17/100, oversight 61/100 (legislative 47, audit 89). Stages: formulation 0, approval 55, implementation 25, audit 0. Documents: Executive’s Budget Proposal 67, Enacted Budget 89, Citizens Budget 42, In-Year Reports 59, Mid-Year Review 41, Year-End Report 74, Audit Report 76; Pre-Budget Statement published late.
  • Rank: IBP’s country page gives none. Sorting IBP’s own 2025 data file (80 countries with a score, 82 participating), Croatia is tied at 62 with Honduras, Jordan, Romania and Zimbabwe, which puts it 17th to 21st (own calculation). Do not set this next to “24th of 125”: IBP says the sample fell from 125 to 82 because a number of consistently high-scoring countries paused, so ranks and averages are not comparable between the rounds. IBP puts the global transparency average at 45.1 for the full 2025 sample.
  • Participation by body: the Ministry of Finance works through the Economic and Social Council during implementation; Parliament holds committee hearings on the budget and the audit report; IBP recommends piloting public engagement during formulation.

Scope: the survey covers the central government’s budget, not municipalities.

Citizens Budget: the Ministry of Finance publishes a “Vodič za građane” (citizens’ guide) for the state budget. The one for the 2026 budget is dated December 2025 (title page opened). The ministry site lists guides for other years too (2021, 2023, 2024 budgets, 2024 and 2025 revisions, execution reports), seen in search results and not all opened. The OBS 2025 only counts what was published through December 2024.

e-Savjetovanja and the budget: no consultation on the draft state budget was found on e-Savjetovanja, and IBP scores formulation-stage participation at 0. The e-Savjetovanja listing could not be searched (it did not load as text), so this is “not found”, not “proved absent”.

Reading: the central government publishes reasonably well, but formal ways for the public to take part before the budget is set are scored at zero. The survey measures formal mechanisms and does not cover local budgets.

Story

Published is not the same as usable: the Citizens Budget, the summary meant for ordinary readers, scored 42 in both 2023 and 2025, among the lowest documents, and IBP asks for it to be shaped by what the public wants to know.

Sources

Check before posting

  • Whether the state budget draft ever went to e-Savjetovanja (search the portal by hand).
  • The 2021 score (64, rank 25) if used.
  • Resolved 2026-11-04: 2023 and 2025 scores confirmed on IBP pages; 2025 rank found in IBP’s data file (tied 17th to 21st of 80) with the sample-size warning; survey scope confirmed as central government; Ministry of Finance does publish a citizens’ guide.

Counterargument

Participation scores measure formal mechanisms. Informal influence through parties, unions and lobbyists is not counted, and Croatia may have more of it than the score suggests. A 62 also sits in a smaller 2025 sample, so a rank cannot be read as a drop or a gain.

Post angles

Facebook (Croatian) Dobra vijest: u istraživanju za 2023. Hrvatska je bila 24. od 125 zemalja po transparentnosti proračuna, sa 67 od 100 bodova. U istraživanju za 2025. ima 62. Loša vijest: za sudjelovanje građana ima samo 17 od 100, u oba istraživanja, a u fazi pisanja proračuna nula. Ministarstvo financija objavljuje vodič za građane, ali građane o državnom proračunu ne pita prije nego što je gotov. Istraživanje mjeri samo državni proračun, ne gradske.

LinkedIn (English) Croatia scored 67/100 on budget transparency in the 2023 Open Budget Survey (24th of 125) and 62 in 2025 (a smaller sample of 82 countries, so ranks are not comparable). On public participation it scores 17/100 in both, with zero at the formulation and audit stages. It is a good picture of publish-but-do-not-ask: reasonable on disclosure, weak on involvement, for the central budget.

Pula lets residents choose small local repairs, up to 8,000 euro per neighbourhood Croatia votes at about 62 percent in national elections and about 21 percent in European ones Published is not the same as available

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