Croatia has set out a national AI plan with €932.1 million in planned investment through 2032. Its first action plan includes training targets, computing infrastructure and proposed AI tools for public services, making this more than a strategy document with a suitably ambitious cover page.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
Croatia Week reports that Justice, Public Administration and Digital Transformation Minister Damir Habijan presented the plan on 16 October. The first action plan runs to 2028 and includes 33 measures, with €382.1 million allocated to that phase.
The proposed measures include AI-literacy training for 7,000 citizens, AI-related training for 10,000 teachers and training for 5,000 public servants. The plan also allocates €139 million to computing and data infrastructure, and proposes a Croatian-language large language model, an AI assistant for the e-Citizens platform and tools to support judicial officials. Read Croatia Week’s report.
Why it matters
The plan links skills and infrastructure spending to specific intended uses, including a public-service assistant and Croatian-language AI. That gives citizens and businesses more to assess than a general promise to embrace innovation: there are stated investment totals, training targets and proposed tools to track.
The report says public consultation on the national plan and action plan will run for 30 days. Those proposals are not evidence that the systems are already built or that the targets have been met.
Our read
The useful test is whether the money turns into accessible training, dependable infrastructure and public tools that make services better. Croatia has put numbers and proposed projects on the table; now the consultation and delivery can be judged against them. A national plan is a map, not the destination.
What to watch
- What changes, if any, follow the 30-day public consultation.
- Progress against the training targets and the first action plan’s €382.1 million allocation.
- Whether the proposed Croatian-language model and e-Citizens assistant are developed, and how their use is governed.
- What safeguards and accountability arrangements accompany AI tools in public services and judicial work.
Discussion spark: Should Croatia prioritise broad AI training and infrastructure, or put more of the first action plan’s funding into specific public-service tools with measurable results?
Sources and evidence
- Source update (17 October 2026, 11:32 UTC)
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