Just like the rest of Europe, Croatia has been forced to confront the challenge of inflation and exposure to Russian energy geopolitics. Zagreb has sought to proactively use the changing geo-economic circumstances in Europe to cast itself as a new regional energy hub. However, Croatia is unable to present a unified foreign policy at the moment, given an ever growing split between the government and the president, who share authority over defense and foreign policy. The president has been vocal in presenting his own interpretation of global and regional developments and this has oftentimes garnered more approval in Moscow than in Brussels or Washington. At the same time, the ruling HDZ party has been in power for the last seven years and is being confronted with increasing domestic disapproval, with the opposition even blocking the government’s plans to train Ukrainian soldiers on Croatian territory, presenting this as a necessary move to stop what they see as the prime minister’s increasing “autocratic tendencies”. Nevertheless, having ushered Croatia into the Eurozone and the Schengen free travel area, HDZ continues to lead opinion polls, with 2024 approaching, a year which will foreseeably see three different elections in Croatia.
