Appearance of European employment policy in the rural areas of Hungarian-Croatian border region

The study provides an insight into Interreg and IPA programs achieved so far, having significant impact on the labour market of rural areas. Another objective is the evaluation of the effects of labour market programs, with the help of the interviews with experts coordinating these programs. However, the Croatian- Hungarian cooperation was perfect, went smoothly, which is also due to the similar labour market problems of the cooperative areas. They fight with similar methods, even in the project reports, evaluations, and there are also similar results found. It has become clear that financial resource-intensive elements cooperation programs operated until they were financed. In these cases, the closing of them prevented sustainability. The non financing-intensive programs, especially if there is local demand that is not based on a faulty premise, and no fundamental changes have taken place, prove to be sustainable. The maintenance and expansion collaborations are important tasks after Croatia’s accession to the EU. Croatia, by taking its own path, but with the use of the Hungarian experience, can stabilize the labour market situation in the most underdeveloped areas.