The Institute for International Relations (IMO), in the framework of its scientific cross-disciplinary research activities and policy studies, contributes to applied research and debate on current economic, political and social issues of global importance, as well as to the development of the Republic of Croatia in the international environment.
Fields of expertise: International economic and political relations, European integration process, Regional development and policy, Sustainable development, Energy policy and climate changes, Competitiveness and development of entrepreneurship and clusters, Cultural policies and communication, Specific aspects of security in the international environment.

News

IMO Forum

A Budget without a Treasury: a European Issue
On Thursday, May 10 2012, the Institute for International Relations (IMO) organized the second IMO Forum, the goal of which is to ensure wider and more open discussion about important political and social questions. Theme of the Forum was the European Union’s budget and the main challenges facing EU in solving fiscal problems as well as in resisting the effects of global financial crises.
The Forum was moderated by Dr. Senada Šelo Šabić from IMO who also held a brief welcome speech. After the welcome speech, H.E. Dr. Gábor Iván, Ambassador of Hungary to Croatia, delivered an interesting lecture describing various issues that the Union faces from the aspect of economic policies management including the fiscal cooperation; conflict between net payers and net beneficiaries of EU budget; lack of fiscal discipline; common monetary policy; the issue of fiscal policy as bastion of national sovereignty; Six Pack legislation and Fiscal Compact as well as other related topics.

Almanac on Security Sector Oversight in the Western Balkans 2012

The Almanac (full document downloadable in PDF here) is a key outcome of a three-year long regional research project "Civil Society Capacity Building to Map and Monitor Security System Reform in the Western Balkans 2009-2012" conducted by IMO researchers together with those of other six organizations from the regional consortium, supported by Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). The main focus of the project was to improve the capacity of civil society organizations in the Western Balkans region to effectively map and monitor security sector governance and to encourage security sector reform, both on the national level, and through a cooperation network on the regional level.

Information sources in the field of international relations and international integration of Croatia

Information sources in the field of international relations and international integration of Croatia / Snježana Ivanović. - Zagreb: IMO, 2012. - IX, 151 pp., ISBN 978-953-6096-58-9. Croatian only.
The purpose of the book is to stress the need for good information sources in the field of International Relations, and take into consideration not only the historic role of libraries in selection, evaluation, organization and presentation of those sources but also their importance in the building of information society. Only well informed citizens can make valid decisions. Thus, the idea has emerged that it should be made possible for the users in Croatia as well to get most of relevant information related to that extensive scientific field, particularly its political aspect, from a single point of access. Such access to digital information sources on the Internet is possible only by creating a vertical portal, i.e. vortal. Therefore, the book focuses on the elaboration of a vortal for international relations within the library of the Institute for International Relations, Zagreb.

IMO Forum

Institute for International Relations kindly invites you to a public lecture "A Budget without a Treasury: a European Issue" in the framework of IMO Forum. The speaker is Dr Gabor Ivan, the Ambassador of Hungary to Croatia.

The Forum will take place on May 10th, 2012 from 11:00 to 12:30 in the main conference room, Novinarski dom, Perkovčeva 2, Zagreb.

The working language of the Forum will be English.

Lecture "The Role of National Parliaments in the European Union" Held

The Institute for International Relations (IMO) and the European Integration Committee of the Croatian Parliament organized a lecture The Role of National Parliaments in the European Union on Monday, 16 April 2012 at the Croatian Parliament. The lecture was delivered by professor Thomas Christiansen from the University of Maastricht and it was held within the ERASMUS project „LISBOAN“ where IMO participates as a project partner. It was emphasised that the Lisbon Treaty empowered the National Parliaments of the EU member states within the EU governance because the Treaty granted them greater possibility of oversight over the EU legislative process. However, the National Parliaments should horizontally cooperate among themselves in order to efficiently respond to the legislative proposals that are being drafted by the European Commission.

Visit of the President of the Republic of Croatia


The President of the Republic of Croatia visited the Institute for International Relations - IMO on March 27, 2012


Croatian President Ivo Josipović visited the Institute for International Relations on March 27th 2012. During the visit, President Josipović talked with IMO’s scientists who informed him about the current work and future activities of this public research institute and about the active involvement of IMO in the European research area on the basis of scientific excellence.
For almost 50 years the Institute for International Relations has carried out theoretical and applied research of international economic, cultural, environmental and political relations, international exchanges and cooperation and the global, regional and national development processes of interest for the Republic of Croatia. IMO deals with these issues bearing in mind the Croatian position in the regional and wider international environment.

FP7 project "ANVIL - Analysis of Civil Security Systems in Europe"

IMO participates in the recently approved FP7 project "ANVIL - Analysis of Civil Security Systems in Europe". The project is coordinated by the Research Management AS (RESMAN) from Norway and apart of IMO it includes ten European universities and research centres.

The project aims to assess the quality of the civil security systems in Europe, both at the level of individual countries and regional security architectures. It seeks to establish a comprehensive and coherent methodology for analyzing civil security systems by relying on the fields of crisis management (effectiveness of the system), public administration science (efficiency of the system) and political science (legitimacy of the system) that should result in appropriate indicators for studying civil security systems.

Project „The Economic Crisis Impact on Industrial Relations National Systems: Policy Responses as Key Recovery Tools“

Institute for International Relations (IMO) is a partner at the project „The Economic Crisis Impact on Industrial Relations National Systems: Policy Responses as Key Recovery Tools”. The aim of this project coordinated by the Center for Economic Development (CED) in Sofia is to make an analytical snapshot of the current development of the existent industrial relations practices in 3 new member states and 3 candidate countries so as to develop immediate policy recommendation on how to improve national expertise in the field. The project activities are designed to boost the national policy debate between parties actively involved in industrial relations in order to promote active exchange of information and experience among them.

Read more

Preferential Trading Agreements and Economic Reforms in Developing Countries, IMO Occasional Papers 1/2012

In this policy paper the authors Leonardo Baccini from Princeton University and Johannes Urpelainen from Columbia University, USA examine how leaders use preferential trading agreements (PTAa) with European Union and the United States to promote liberal economic policies. They argue that under democratization, new leaders would benefit the most from credible commitment and side payments to compensate vulnerable domestic constituencies for their losses. Their empirical analysis, which includes also Croatia, shows that under democratization, leader change greatly increases the probability that the government of a country begins treaty negotiations. The analysis also demonstrates that PTAs induce liberalization in different sectors of the economy.
The text could be viewed or downloaded in PDF format here.

Protection and Sustainable Use of the Dinaric Karst Transboundary Aquifer Systems (DIKTAS) Workshop

As one of the activities within the GEF-UNDP Regional Project “Protection and Sustainable Use of the Dinaric Karst Transboundary Aquifer Systems” (DIKTAS) a workshop will be organized on March 1st 2012, in the building of Croatian Waters, Ulica grada Vukovara 220. The DIKTAS Project is addressing the issue of sustainable management of transboundary karst groundwater and supported ecosystems in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro.

The workshop will be organized with the support and collaboration of the: Ministry of Agriculture, UNDP, the International Hydrological Programme of UNESCO, Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med) and Institute for International Relations from Zagreb.