Contemporary Southeastern Europe 2026, 13 (2)

“Biram Hrvatsku”: Exploring the ‘return migration and development’ nexus in lagging regions of Croatia

The I Choose Croatia (Biram Hrvatsku) program, launched by the Croatian government in 2021, aims to incentivize return migration by supporting returnees in starting a business. Since program beneficiaries typically return to places of origin, businesses are often established in rural, economically and demographically weakened, “lagging” regions. By encouraging return migration and regional investment, the program seeks to counter demographic decline and stimulate local development. This study examines the alignment between policy intentions and actual outcomes, focusing on the experiences of returnees who have resettled to rural, peripheral regions, particularly in Pannonian Croatia. Drawing on qualitative interviews with nineteen beneficiaries and six experts, it explores motivations, resources, entrepreneurial activities and challenges, and the program’s role in return trajectories. While a growing number of studies focus on return migrants’ contributions to origin countries, rural, peripheral areas remain largely overlooked. This study contributes to filling that gap by assessing the development potential of return migration to Croatia’s “lagging” regions. The findings suggest that returnees can indeed stimulate local development by transferring (in-) tangible remittances. While programs such as Biram Hrvatsku can facilitate this process, they are not the primary drivers of return, business establishment, and local development.
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Caroline Hornstein Tomić

Caroline Hornstein Tomić

Caroline Hornstein Tomić, PhD, is Research Advisor at the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences in Zagreb (Sociology / Cultural Anthropology). Her research focuses on return, labour and high-skilled migration and related policies, as well as diaspora and identity politics in state-building and transformation processes (regional focus: Southeast Europe). Currently, she leads a work package within the Horizon Europe-project We-ID: Identities – Migration – Democracy, and team research on the current migration transition in Croatia. Her work experience also stretches into the public sector: as Head of the Operative Division and Deputy Head of the German Federal Agency for Civic Education from 2016 to 2018 (Bonn/Berlin); as Head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s Country Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2001 to 2005. She is Co-Founder of the pan-European non-profit THE CIVICS Innovation Hub, the Croatian Foundation Wissen am Werk/Znanje na djelu, and she serves on the Board of the European Forum Alpbach.

Janine Pinkow-Läpple

Janine Pinkow-Läpple

Janine Pinkow-Läpple is a migration researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) in Halle (Saale), Germany. Her work engages with debates on migration, social change, gender equality, and remittances, with a particular interest in intangible remittances and migration-driven knowledge transfers. She specialises in qualitative and participatory methods and has a regional focus on Southeast Europe. She obtained her doctorate in political science from Humboldt University of Berlin, where her dissertation examined how female return migrants in Kosovo and Romania transmit ideas and practices that may contribute to social and gender transformation in their countries of origin. Alongside her academic work, she has worked as a consultant for the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) on rural development initiatives in Southeast Europe.
 

Ana Budimir

Ana Budimir

Ana Budimir is a PhD candidate and a research and teaching assistant at the Department of Public Policy and Political Economy, Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb. Her research focuses on migration and innovation, with her doctoral dissertation examining how and why highly skilled individuals, scientists in particular, remain connected to their countries of origin and the role of public policies in facilitating their return. She holds an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA and MA in Political Science and Economics from the University of Zagreb. In addition to her doctoral research, she has worked as a consultant for the World Bank on projects related to migration, innovation, and regional development. She also manages the non-profit initiative Leading Utilities of the World, which connects the world’s leading water utilities to share knowledge and foster innovation.  
 

Keywords:
return migration rural areas lagging regions (-in) tangible remittances social remittances

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