Harmonization With The Common Agricultural Policy For A New Member State: The Case Of Croatia

The integration process of candidate and potential candidate countries for the EU causes confusion and scepticism among different stakeholders, which often leads to missing out on accession opportunities. Although NMS are able to achieve economic growth by joining the EU, membership success also depends on the initial agricultural structure, local and national policy, pre-accession and post-accession measures, education, vocational training, development of the non farm rural economy and institutional environment. Croatia, as the newest EU member state, has been experiencing certain issues in the implementation of CAP measures. Using thematic references dealing with the issues of the CAP and harmonization of NMS and conducting interviews among stakeholders in Croatia through focus groups during the pre-accession and membership period, the goals of this paper were to determine: (1) the understanding of the CAP principles and adjustments of national agricultural policies (2) the effects of policy results on national agriculture and further expectations (3) the state of policy learning and dialogue. These results could serve agricultural policy scholars as contribution to the analysis of integration policies and decision makers to avoid misunderstandings when implementing new agricultural policy measures.