Croatia should draw on universities to build its capacity for evaluating the use of EU funds.

Croatia is due to become the 28th member state of the European Union on the 1st of July. Ahead of the country’s accession, Simona Milio writes on efforts to build Croatia’s capacity for evaluating its use of EU funds. All EU member states that receive Cohesion Policy funding are required to have a strong evaluation system in place, yet the Croatian system is still a work in progress. She argues that Croatia should make greater use of universities to help set up systems capable of improving the country’s evaluation capacities.