With its population falling, Croatia is considering legal chages to make it easier for Croatian emigrants and their descendants to receive citizenship of the European Union’s newest member.
But in doing so, it is ignoring the plight of an estimated 5,000 mainly Croatian Serbs denied Croatian papers since the collapse of federal Yugoslavia, critics of the proposed legislation say.
The draft amendments to Croatia’s Citizenship Law passed a first reading in parliament at the end of January, when Milijan Brkic, a lawmaker with the ruling centre-right Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, said the changes would “send a message to emigrants that the doors are open” and “give them a hand to return and invest in Croatia.”
The amendments scrap a current restriction that says only those whose parents or grandparents have Croatian citizenship can apply, raises the age limit for the registration of those born abroad to at least one Croatian parent from 18 to 21 and lifts a requirement that an applicant speaks Croatian, understands Latin script and has knowledge of Croatian culture and ‘social structure’.
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