Croatian Parliament passes Act on National Security System
The Croatian Parliament passed the Act on National Security System at its session of 27 October 2017 with the vast majority of votes. Along with the prior adoption of the National Security Strategy, the Act launched the Government’s programme in national security.
The purpose of the Act is to put in place an effective National Security System, to respond to modern-day threats and risks.
The mission of the National Security System is to build a security environment, protect and promote the national interests of the Republic of Croatia, providing safety for citizens, economy, infrastructure, natural resources of the national territory as the prerequisite of overall prosperity of the Republic of Croatia.
The National Security System is expected to enable co-ordinated response to security risks, ranging from risk identification and appraisal to undertaking steps and activities to remove or reduce the risks to an acceptable degree.
The System is composed of the relevant government administration bodies responsible for the interior, defence, foreign affairs, civil protection, environment protection, health care, finance and judiciary, the security and intelligence system units, the government administration bodies responsible for the critical infrastructure or which may are or be included into dealing with security risks, and others.
The main System body is the National Security Council, which supervises the security and intelligence system and the System itself, which promotes the Partnership for Security – a synergy of all capabilities of the society and the state.
The Co-ordination for the Homeland Security System is responsible for the updates to the Strategy, and the appraisal of the national security risks, prioritsation, co-ordinates the implementation of guidelines, decisions and conclusions of the National Security Council.
The Co-ordination is authorised to recommend the Government of the Republic of Croatia to declare an emergency and establish of a crisis management headquarters, which has not been regulated hitherto.
The Act stipulates the authority for the Croatian Government to reallocate the funds within the State Budget in the event of a crisis situation .