Croatian IMM Shares Lessons Learned for Future Advisory Support to IMM under the Pact

The Croatian Independent Monitoring Mechanism (hereinafter: IMM) has published two documents concerning IMM’s received advisory support and as relevant for the independent monitoring mechanism under the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum (hereinafter: IMM under the Pact):
 
In this final stage of the current IMM mandate, the AB IMM’s five-year advisory role is considered a very valuable and impactful experience. The IMM therefore uses the opportunity of publishing the AB IMM 2026 Recommendations not merely to document the IMM’s continuous upgrading of operations and reporting, but also to share IMM’s Lessons Learned on future advisory support to the IMM under the Pact. The main addressees of IMM’s Lessons Learned are the Government Office for Human Rights and Rights of National Minorities, tasked with hosting the future IMM under the Pact, and the MoI as one of the key monitored entities, notwithstanding that future Croatian monitoring actors, the interested public, other Member States, EU and international bodies, civil society organisations and expert communities involved in setting up, advising, evaluating, supporting or funding IMMs under the Pact might benefit from IMM’s specific experience in this regard.

On the basis of the Croatian IMM experience, the IMM recommends that advisory functions supporting the IMM under the Pact be designed and operated according to the following core principles:
 
  • define advisory mandates, working methods, consultation procedures and publication rules in writing and publicly;
  • clearly distinguish advisory support, evaluation, standard-setting and public assessment;
  • provide timely written input during the monitoring cycle, not only retrospective recommendations;
  • ground every recommendation in the monitoring record, applicable standard and operational feasibility;
  • distinguish facts, interpretations, preferences, future suggestions and shortcomings;
  • track and acknowledge implementation of previous recommendations;
  • avoid assessing past reports by reference to later-developed or unavailable sources or guidance;
  • respect the IMM’s mandate and avoid assigning it functions belonging to other bodies;
  • recognise and disseminate functioning national best practices that may assist future or other IMMs;
  • provide practical tools, templates, examples and peer-learning opportunities;
  • manage institutional roles and potential conflicts of interest transparently;
  • ensure that advisory support strengthens, rather than substitutes or dilutes, the independent judgement of the monitoring mechanism.

The central lesson is straightforward - IMMs under the Pact themselves, as well as those who advise, evaluate or set standards for IMMs under the Pact, must lead by own example. Advisory and standard-setting actors should apply to their own operations, assessments and recommendations the same principles of evidentiary discipline, methodological transparency, operational relevance and accountability that IMMs are expected to apply in their monitoring and reporting work, and that IMMs in turn expect the monitored entities, i.e. border police, to apply in their actions towards migrants and investigations into alleged fundamental rights violations.

The IMM also publishes the Ministry of Interior Police Directorate (hereinafter: MoI PD) instruction of 25 February 2026 concerning expressions of intention to seek international protection at border crossing points, as it vividly demonstrates the practical function and importance of independent and effective monitoring. Where the IMM detected a limited qualitative pattern concerning quota- or capacity-based delays at certain border crossing points, the matter was referred to the MoI as a detected irregularity and immediately addressed by the MoI PD through a written instruction issued to the competent police administrations, while promptly notifying the IMM about said corrective and preventative measure. IMM’s monitors have since through still ongoing monitoring missions focused specifically on following-up how these instructions are being implemented in practice, notwithstanding that with the Pact meanwhile being implemented, the applicable procedure has considerably changed. 
 
With regard to the AB IMM 2026 Recommendations as such, the IMM welcomes them as a valuable forward-looking document that sets a number of relevant 2026 benchmarks for the future Croatian IMM to be established under the Pact by the Government Office for Human Rights and Rights of National Minorities. Many of these new benchmarks echo the IMM’s recommendations already set out in its 2025 Annual Report, particularly those concerning structured follow-up on referrals and investigations, the transition to the new mechanism to be established under the Pact, and the need to ensure adequate and sustainable funding following the completion of the IMM project and the end of its monitoring operations on 30 June 2026.

The IMM notes that the AB IMM in its 2026 Recommendations did not reiterate any of its major 2025 Recommendations to the IMM, nor indicated that any of its 2025 Recommendations were not implemented or addressed by the IMM in the 2025 monitoring and reporting cycle. The IMM, after committing to implement all the 2025 AB Recommendations and detailing how exactly it will do so, understands this as recognition that the 2025 benchmarks for improving the independence and functioning of the IMM were fully implemented or substantively addressed. This was achieved through the 2025 upgrading of the IMM’s monitoring methodology, field presence, green-border monitoring, migrant interviews, fundamental rights risk assessment, monthly recommendation procedure, referrals and follow-up practice, notification and communication channels and through the detailed methodological and evidentiary architecture presented in the IMM 2025 Annual Report. The 2025 Report also provides a dedicated methodological chapter, an extensive explanation of the evidentiary architecture and data sources, and a detailed annex listing all 2025 monitoring missions and operations by date and location, as requested by the AB IMM 2025 Recommendations.

The IMM regrets that it cannot regard as a professionally grounded assessment those parts of the AB IMM 2026 Recommendations insofar as they list alleged shortcomings in the IMM 2025 Annual Report by reference to documents, reports or methodological tools that were not available at the time of the Report’s adoption in March 2026, or insofar as they rest on factual inaccuracies (for further details, see the IMM Lessons Learned). The IMM also cannot subscribe to the notion that the 2025 Annual Report should have been designed along the lines of a legal commentary on individual legal provisions or case law. The Report is a monitoring report. Its purpose is to present an evidence-based, methodologically traceable assessment of the monitored instances of police officers’ actions towards migrants. Its Annex 6 provides a non-exhaustive comprehensive listing of relevant standards and guidance, while the Report itself applies those standards through findings, referrals and recommendations, based on a substantial assessment of each monitored case/instance as recorded in the IMM monitors’ reports, adopted by the IMM’s Coordination Board (hereinafter: CB IMM) comprised of leading experts and practitioners, incl. an acknowledged independent legal expert. Specifically, the quota-related issue, for example, illustrates IMM’s function and role in this regard: the relevant fundamental rights concern was sufficiently clear to trigger referral and operational correction, without requiring the IMM or the MoI PD to reproduce or reference the applicable legal framework, single provisions or specific case law. The IMM has been set up and tasked with the primary function of an operational oversight body committed to protecting fundamental rights in practice, not as an academic exercise producing legal commentaries on the basics of fundamental rights law or acting as a para-judicial body engaging in quasi-adjudication of potential fundamental rights violations. The interested general public as well as laypersons lacking comprehension of fundamental rights law and standards are referred to Annex 6 of the IMM’s 2025 Annual Report.
 
The IMM notes that the AB IMM 2026 Recommendations did not identify the IMM’s Letter of Rights and Complaints procedure as a Croatian best practice, in line with the AB IMM’s own definition of the label “best practice”, for broad future implementation, not only in Croatia but also as a model of practical relevance for other Member States setting up IMMs under the Pact. The IMM 2025 Annual Report recommends swift nationwide implementation of this procedure, accompanied by an integrated reporting and notification mechanism enabling real-time or near-real-time external independent monitoring, incl. live monitoring of the effectiveness of ongoing investigations into reported fundamental rights violations. 

In conclusion, the IMM notes that the AB IMM 2026 remarks on monitor training fail to acknowledge the expertise and training history of the IMM monitor team. IMM monitors are recognised experts and practitioners in their respective fields, many of whom have conducted field monitoring since the establishment of the IMM back in 2021. They have worked under standardised monitoring tools, internal methodological procedures, monthly reporting and quality-control arrangements, and repeated methodological and fundamental-rights peer-learning arrangements and the IMM’s CB instructions. The IMM does however echo the relevant AB IMM 2026 recommendation in its forward-looking and more broadly applicable meaning, understood as IMMs under the Pact and future monitors should indeed not engage in any monitoring tasks prior to completing extensive training and collecting supervised field experience, which should also incl. a certification of minimal skills and competences as demonstrated by those being monitored, i.e. (border) police officers, to ensure basic comprehension of normative, operational and tactical standards and practical realities of border police work and procedures among monitors.