The Europe 2020 strategy is the EU's strategic development plan and includes 5 main objectives related to climate change, employment, research and development, education, poverty reduction and social exclusion. The realization of the strategy significantly depends on the ability of the EU Member States to implement the necessary reforms at the national level in order to achieve growth. The European Structural and Investment Funds have the task of supporting the implementation of this strategy and strengthening social, economic and territorial cohesion. Cohesion policy defines 11 thematic objectives for generating growth in the period 2014-2020, and these objectives are reflected in the investment priorities of the ESI Funds. One of the ESI Funds is the European Social Fund and is the main European instrument for stimulating employment growth, labor mobility, investment in education, lifelong learning and efficiency of public administration. The EU within the programming period 2014-2020. faces many challenges such as climate change, preserving the environment, reducing social exclusion and poverty, helping to tackle the negative effects of the economic crisis, retaining existing ones and creating new jobs. Each of the EU member states adopts operational programs, ie. documents in which the thematic objectives are linked to specific activities. The European Commission has approved the Operational Program Effective Human Resources, which lists the areas for which the Republic of Croatia will be able to use ESF funds. This paper analyzes the Croatian economy, presents the projects that were implemented by using ESF funds and finally research was conducted on additional opportunities to use the ESF to implement new projects that should encourage further growth of the Croatian economy. The research came to the conclusion that ESF funds can help in the implementation of certain new projects that would certainly have a significant positive impact on the development of the Croatian economy.