Source: pomorac.hr Author: kap. Milo Miklaušić
Introduction: a strategic industry at a crossroads
Jurisdiction: EU law on state aid (Articles 107-109 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union; Frameworks for state aid in shipbuilding) + Croatian national law (Law on the Regulation of Rights and Obligations of Shipyards in the Restructuring Process; Law on State Aid) + international legal obligations (Stabilization and Association Agreement; Annex VIII of the Accession Treaty of the Republic of Croatia with the EU).
Shipbuilding is one of the few industries in which Croatia achieved global competitiveness in the 20th century. In its golden age, mainly in the decades between the 1950s and 1990s, the Croatian shipbuilding industry was among the leading European exporters of vessels measured by gross compensated tonnage (CGT), employing tens of thousands of workers and generating significant foreign exchange earnings. The shipyards 3. MAJ, Uljanik, Brodosplit, Brodotrogir and Brodogradilište Kraljevica were not only economic entities but also symbols of the industrial identity of individual Adriatic regions.
However, the transition from a socialist to a market economy, and then accession to the European Union in 2013, brought a fundamental institutional rupture that confronted this industry with the question: is it possible to transform a model that relies on massive state support into a model that is sustainable on market principles and compliant with EU competition rules?
This essay analyzes four hypotheses about the transformation of that model, placing each in the appropriate legal and economic framework and evaluating the empirical verification of each hypothesis based on the available data.
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