The EU must close the budget gap left by the UK's decision to leave the Union, and invest additionally into border protection, migration politics, and defence.

The European plan for the EU 7-year budget suggests a new rule: the access to EU funding would be conditioned by the member states upholding the rule of law.

The Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, said that his government’s priorities were known and clear.

“Our priorities have to do with the cohesion politics, even regional development, economy, entrepreneurship, our young people, but also agriculture, and I think a part will come from the defence and illegal migrations,” the Prime Minister said.

But the largest cuts are predicted precisely for the cohesion funds, and this is not the only area of disagreement between Bruxelles and Croatia. Plenkovic commented on the new criteria to do with the rule of law in member states.

“We have some reserves here, we must very carefully see what exactly that would entail, because it is not the same that those who were EU members before us had different criteria and took money regardless of that criteria being respected, and this here is a novelty,” the Prime Minister said.

Both the ruling coalition and the opposition agree that this new rule is not necessarily bad news for Croatia.

“We have an opportunity to, with good suggestions, pull the same as before, if not a larger, amount from the EU funds, but, of course, with stricter criteria than before,” said the Croatian MP from the centre-left GLAS party, Vesna Pusic.

The 7-year budget could be finalised during Croatia’s first presidency of the Union, in the first half of 2020.

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