Relationship dossier
Croatia
Italy
Relationship assessment
Croatia and Italy maintain a strategic partnership, alongside periodic disputes over Adriatic fisheries and maritime policy.
Croatia toward Italy
+45Croatia signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with Italy in 1996 and joined Italy in establishing a strategic partnership in 2023. Croatia’s fisheries-protection zone in the Adriatic has also been a source of disagreement with Italy.
Italy toward Croatia
+45Italy signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with Croatia in 1996, supported Croatia’s accession to the European Union, and joined it in establishing a strategic partnership in 2023. Italy objected to Croatia’s fisheries-protection zone in the Adriatic.
Overall relationship
+45The relationship is anchored by a bilateral friendship treaty and an upgraded strategic partnership, alongside cooperation connected with Croatia’s European integration. Adriatic fisheries and maritime policy have produced concrete disagreements, tempering an otherwise cooperative bilateral structure.
How to read these scores
Scores are rough judgments, not objective measurements or current verification. Directional scores describe government policy and conduct, not public opinion. The overall score is an independent estimate, never an average.
- −100
- Extreme sustained hostility
- −50
- Substantially adversarial
- 0
- Mixed or neutral, supported by knowledge
- +50
- Substantially cooperative
- +100
- Exceptionally close sustained partnership
“Not assessed” means there is no recorded score. Pair existence makes no claim about diplomatic recognition or established relations.
Relationship context
Overview
Croatia and Italy have built a cooperative relationship through a 1996 treaty of friendship and cooperation and a 2023 declaration establishing a strategic partnership. Italy supported Croatia’s path to European Union membership, while the two governments have also cooperated on Adriatic issues. Disagreements over Croatia’s fisheries-protection zone have at times complicated relations, but have not displaced their broader institutional partnership.
Areas of tension
- Italy objected to Croatia’s declaration of an ecological and fisheries-protection zone in the Adriatic.
Key developments
Croatia and Italy signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation.
Italy supported Croatia’s accession to the European Union.
The two governments established a strategic partnership through a joint declaration.
Major uncertainties
- The scope and implementation of cooperation under the 2023 strategic partnership are unclear.
- The extent to which remaining Adriatic fisheries and maritime issues continue to affect bilateral policy is unclear.