CRO-IGF 2016 (Croatian Internet Governance Forum) — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

1. The second CRO-IGF met on 1 June 2016 at the Grand Hotel Adriatic in the seaside town of Opatija, co-located with the MIPRO 2016 ICT conference, drawing 68 participants.
2. Four topics were on the table: human rights online (child protection), open government data, net neutrality and .hr domain dispute resolution, with ICANN Board member Lousewies van der Laan among the guests.
3. With the EU's TSM Regulation and the BEREC guidelines imminent, the net-neutrality debate — plus a frank attack on public-sector 'data hugging' — made this a snapshot of digital policy in a small state three years into EU membership.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on CRO-IGF 2016 (Croatian Internet Governance Forum) draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

(See the source list at the end of this article.)

Discussion Digest — from the Session Records

Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.

1. Children's Rights Online — Balancing Protection and Access

Sessions: Session 'Human Rights on the Internet / Protection of Children on the Internet' (introduction by Children's Ombudsman Ivana Milas Klarić; moderated by Krešo Antonović)

• Children's Ombudsman Ivana Milas Klarić stressed the balance between protection and children's right to access useful information — government must not overprotect, i.e. censor the internet [1][2]
• With children going online as early as kindergarten, two ideas won broad support: education programmes aimed at parents and teachers, and putting media literacy into national curricula [1][2]
• On hate speech, law scholar Marko Jurić argued Croatia should track European court decisions to keep the EU response unified [1][2]

2. Open Government Data — data.gov.hr and the 'Data Hugging' Problem

Sessions: Session 'Open Data in the Public Administration' (introduction by Information Commissioner Anamarija Musa)

• Commissioner Musa reported that data.gov.hr, live since 2015, already held 247 datasets linked to the European data portal, and named public bodies' 'data hugging' as a key obstacle [1]
• Industry declared a clear commercial interest in re-packaging public data as value-added information, and academia welcomed joint projects with the public and private sectors [1]
• When the civil-society panellist asked the audience what mattered most to them, silence followed — proof, the report notes, that the right to access open data itself still needs promoting [1]

3. Net Neutrality — On the Eve of the TSM Regulation and BEREC Guidelines

Sessions: Session 'Network Neutrality' (introduction by Zdravko Jukić, HAKOM Council member)

• Jukić presented the EU's principle-based TSM Regulation as a well-balanced way to preserve the internet as a platform for permissionless innovation and universal connectivity [1]
• Operators argued for room to develop specialised services and for regulatory intervention only on market failure, while the floor warned of big OTT players closing markets and raised the novel question of IoT packet prioritisation [1]
• Croatia's shortage of fast optical networks was flagged as the more fundamental problem, and all agreed the BEREC guidelines — published days later, on 6 June 2016 — would be decisive for national regulators [1]

4. Co-Locating with MIPRO — a National IGF the Neighbours Came to See

Sessions: Overall proceedings and participant feedback (as recorded in the official final report)

"As a Steering Committee member of the Slovenian IGF I would like to express my appreciation for the work undertaken by the Cro-IGF team… The Cro-IGF events are also attractive for participants from the region as well as for the international community (written feedback in the official final report)"
— Dušan Caf (Steering Committee member, Slovenian IGF; Digitas Institute) [1][2][3]

"Very valuable input from open and inclusive discussions. Government needs to listen to all stakeholders in order to develop a true national position on various internal, regional and global issues (written feedback in the official final report)"
— Zdravko Jukić (Croatian GAC Representative) [1][2][3]

• Moving from the capital to the MIPRO ICT conference in Opatija for the first time, the forum grew from 41 to 68 participants and drew visitors from Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia [1][2][3]
• A fourth session covered dispute resolution for .hr domains, and the report credits an IGFSA donation and ICANN's continued support for making the event possible [1][2][3]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What did this meeting decide?

A. Nothing binding — but with the EU's net-neutrality rules about to take effect, regulators, ministries, telecoms and civil society argued their positions in public, and took the results back into their own policy processes.

Q. What was the most contentious topic?

A. Net neutrality. Operators wanted room for specialised services and regulation only upon market failure; civil society demanded stronger protection of basic internet access; the floor warned about big OTT platforms closing off the market.

Q. Why should I care?

A. Open government data and children's online safety are live issues everywhere, and the Children's Ombudsman's warning — overprotecting the internet amounts to censoring it — speaks to parents and policymakers in any country.

What Is Croatia IGF? (for first-time readers)

Croatia IGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.

Why It Matters to You

What was discussed here becomes the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years. The principles confirmed at the 2016 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.

Sources & References

1. Croatian IGF 2016 – Final report (PDF) — CRO-IGF組織委員会（CARNET公式サイト掲載） (accessed 2026-07-11)
2. Cro-IGF 2016（第2回クロアチアIGF開催ニュース） — domene.hr（CARNET運営の.hrドメインポータル） (accessed 2026-07-11)
3. Forum o upravljanju internetom (CRO-IGF)（公式プロジェクトページ・歴代最終報告書一覧） — CARNET (accessed 2026-07-11)
4. Croatian IGF 2017 – Final report（第2回の開催日・開催地を裏付ける翌年公式報告書, PDF） — CRO-IGF組織委員会（CARNET公式サイト掲載） (accessed 2026-07-11)

Quotes are translated or condensed from the records listed above. Bracketed numbers [n] refer to the source list.

Related links

• IGF official (NRI list): https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/national-and-regional-igf-initiatives
• Japan IGF: https://japanigf.jp/
• Yuki Nakazawa's blog: https://nkzw.jp/category/igf/

Revision History

Rev. 1 — published 4 June 2016, 16:00 (Article published)

Rev. 2 — updated 17 July 2026, 12:32 (Fully revised into the in-depth edition: added the 3-line summary, minutes digest, short talk, source list and diagrams (all quotes verified against the listed sources))

— 中澤祐樹