The process has been a challenging one for Croatia as the entry criteria was raised. This was because of previous bad experiences with new entrants where many EU members felt that mistakes in monitoring had been made with countries entering before being fully prepared. Therefore, Croatia has had to work harder as the reforms aimed at synchronisation with EU legislation have been monitored very closely.

However, recent times have been marked more by the on-going recession rather than expectation of the economic upswing that Croatia had hoped the accession would bring. The Government, which took power in late 2011 proclaimed foreign investment as one of the key levers in emerging from recession, although some interest has been attracted, we are yet to see any tangible results.

The accession date is finally right ahead, and questions are being raised on the impact of accession on the real estate sector. Given its importance, the Research Department of Jones Lang LaSalle has prepared an interesting comparison which considers the positive impact that EU accession had on other countries in the region in all real estate sectors. (source: europaproperty.com)