Dario Čepo: European Values and Their Influence on Democracy in Croatia

Summary of Dario Čepo’s presentation given during the roundtable Citizen’s Rights and Challenges to Democracy in Croatia (English and Croatian version):

Last speaker, Dario Čepo believes that we all talk about European values, but we define them differently. There are three ways in which European values ​​can be implemented in society: through the process of europeanization, policy of enlargement, and the principle of conditionality. It turned out that Croatia regressed in areas which were supposed to be influenced by the principle of conditionality the most, as shown by the Liberal Democracy Index 2018. Those areas are: freedom of expression, lack of media independence, media (self)censorship. He said that profound changes and a shift towards European values ​​are not in the interest of political actors in Croatia. European elites, on the other hand, seek potential member states to fulfill technical requirements, but not to internalize them. European values ​​observed in this context are still a matter of fiction in Croatian society.

Posljednji govornik, Dario Čepo smatra da svi govorimo o europskim vrijednostima, ali ih različito definiramo. Postoje tri načina na koja se europske vrijednosti implementiraju u društvo: proces europeizacije, politika proširenja, načelo uvjetovanosti. Pokazalo se da je Hrvatska nazadovala u onim područjima na koje je načelo uvjetovanosti trebalo imati poseban naglasak, prema rezultatima Liberal Democracy Index-a 2018. Ta područja su: sloboda izražavanja, manjak medijske neovisnosti, medijska (samo)cenzura. Rekao je da dubinska promjena i zaokret prema europskim vrijednostima nije u interesu političkih aktera u Hrvatskoj. Europske elite, s druge strane, traže zadovoljavanje tehničkih uvjeta, ali ne i njihovo internaliziranje. Europske vrijednosti promatrane u takvom kontekstu još su uvijek fikcija u hrvatskom društvu