Mislav Kolakušić


Mislav Kolakušić is a Croatian lawyer and politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament for Croatia since 2 July 2019, having been elected to the position at the 2019 election. Previously, he served as a judge at the Zagreb Commercial Court.

Early life and education

Kolakušić was born in Zagreb, Croatia, where he finished elementary and high school. Kolakušić graduated law from the University of Zagreb in 1997. He passed the bar exam in 2000.

Professional career

Kolakušić worked as a court trainee at the Commercial Court in Zagreb and at the Municipal and County Courts in Zagreb from 1998 to 2000. From 2001 to 2005, Kolakušić worked on the working-financial department of the Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia, and from 2005 to 2011 as a senior counsel at the same court. Since 2011, he has been a judge at the Zagreb Commercial Court.
Kolakušić also served as the spokesperson of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia from 2009 to 2011, as well as the Labor Relations Interlocutor of the same court from 2005 to 2011. He was the president of the Croatian Association of Judicial Advisers and Trainees from 2006 to 2011. In 2017, he was a candidate for a judge at the Constitutional Court of Croatia, but was not elected.

Political career

9th European Parliament

At the European Parliament election in Croatia in May 2019, Kolakušić was elected to the European Parliament.
Kolakušić is a member of the Parliament Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Legal Affairs, and a substitute of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.

Presidential candidacy

A day after the 2019 European Parliament election, on 29 May, Kolakušić announced that he will run at the 2019 Croatian presidential election. On 29 November, he submitted some 15,000 signatures to the State Electoral Commission.