Brussels challenges State Attorney Ivan Turudić

Only 27% of Croatian citizens and 28% of companies view their judiciary as independent, according to the European Commission's 2026 Rule of Law Report, published on 17 July (Commission, Index.hr). Corruption remains "widespread," the Commission finds, even as prosecutors actively bring cases. The annual report diagnoses all of this. It cannot compel Croatia to fix it.

Busy Prosecutors, Empty Confidence

Croatia's chapter does not describe institutional collapse. Anti-corruption bodies exist and prosecutors are working. But the gap between that activity and public confidence is enormous, and the Commission's main tool for addressing it is a cycle of dialogue, recommendations and follow-up, not binding orders (Commission). The Commission itself acknowledges that implementation of past recommendations has weakened across the EU (Commission), and there is no automatic link between its rule-of-law findings and EU funding decisions (EU Perspectives).

Before a country joins the EU, Brussels holds real gatekeeping power: it can slow negotiations and demand reforms as the price of entry. FAZ's coverage of the same report cycle showed the contrast through Serbia, where negative rule-of-law scores still shape the candidate's path (FAZ). After accession, the toolkit narrows sharply. Brussels cannot freeze money just because courts are distrusted; it must show that rule-of-law failures directly threaten the management of EU funds (Regulation 2020/2092, CER). And Article 7 (the EU's most severe procedure, which can suspend a country's voting rights) requires political consensus among governments that has never been reached against any member state. Low survey trust in courts does not, on its own, trigger any of these tools.

The Fight Over Who Prosecutes EU Fraud

One EU instrument does have the power to bring cases. The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) can investigate and prosecute crimes affecting the EU budget in participating member states (EPPO Regulation). Croatia participates. EPPO cannot repair general distrust in Croatian courts, but where EU money is at stake, it has legal authority that the annual report lacks.

A conflict has erupted over where that authority ends. Croatia's Constitutional Court asked the EU's Court of Justice (the EU's top court, based in Luxembourg) to rule on the boundary between EPPO's jurisdiction and that of Croatia's national prosecution service, DORH. The Commission intervened, arguing that Croatia's chief state attorney, Ivan Turudić, cannot be considered independent and impartial in adjudicating that boundary (Telegram.hr). Verfassungsblog, a German constitutional-law platform, treated the dispute as a warning about what happens when a national prosecution system pushes back against the EU prosecutor from inside a member state (Verfassungsblog).

The stakes are straightforward. If Croatian institutions successfully narrow EPPO's reach through domestic constitutional channels, other participating countries gain a template for doing the same. The EU's only prosecutorial arm would operate at the discretion of the national systems it is supposed to oversee.

What Brussels Can and Cannot Do

The evidence does not support a sanctions-crisis frame. Croatia's situation reveals a structural limit: a member state can carry rock-bottom judicial confidence and persistent corruption year after year while the Commission records the problem and recommends the same reforms. Brussels can diagnose Croatia's rule-of-law problem, but it can only enforce when that problem touches EU money, EU law or EPPO jurisdiction, not when it erodes domestic democratic confidence on its own.

The EPPO competence dispute now sits with the Court of Justice in Luxembourg. That ruling will determine whether the EU's only prosecutorial arm can operate fully inside a member state whose chief prosecutor the Commission considers compromised. The answer is owed by Luxembourg. The cooperation it demands will be owed by Zagreb.