EU Integration

Twenty years after: The Amendments and Modifications to the Law on Croatian Citizenship

Viktor Koska
Croatian flag

The amendments still did not manage to overcome certain limitations of the previous text of the law. Even following the amendments, the entitlements for facilitated naturalization based on ethnic membership may still be in breach of the non-discrimination principle of the European Convention on Nationality, while certain legal practitioners criticize the law on the grounds that it is technically poorly written which leaves opportunities for arbitrary interpretations of certain sections of the law. 

When in 1991 Croatia enacted its law on Croatian citizenship, probably not even its biggest advocates expected that it would (with only minor amendments) regulate the Croatian citizenship regime for the next twenty years.

Updated on: 4 March 2013

Constitutional provision on EU citizenship – The case of Croatia

Tina Oršolić
Zagreb

Croatia is the first State to adopt a provision concerning European citizenship in its Constitution - none of the current Member States’ Constitutions include such an article. Of additional concern are the possible impacts that the constitutional amendment on EU citizenship might have on the exercise and enforcement of EU citizens’ rights in Croatia. Namely, there is a likelihood that the move to adopt the EU citizenship provision will be interpreted by both the citizenry and the judiciary as a suggestion, or worse, a requirement to rely on this constitutional norm instead of relevant EU law provisions when seeking to protect EU citizens’ rights in Croatia.

As a candidate country for European Union accession, Croatia has recently introduced a number of legal reforms in order to fulfill the membership criteria. One of these concerns the amendments made to the Croatian Constitution in June 2010.

Updated on: 30 May 2012

Citizens of ‘Yugosphere’ and ‘United Kingdoms’?- An interview with Tim Judah

Yugosphere revisited

I never said that the ‘Yugosphere’ was an exclusive one-way option. I always said that it was a sort of roof and underneath it you have a kind of ‘Serbian sphere’, a ‘Croatian sphere’, an ‘Albanian sphere’ (which is half in and half out of the ‘Yugosphere’), and even a ‘Bosniak sphere’. So you can simultaneously have a foot in both. For example, you can be a Serb living in Drvar (in the federation part of Bosnia and Herzegovina), your son goes to university in Belgrade, you do business with people in Croatia or Sarajevo, and you visit your aunt in Macedonia.

Interview with Tim Judah conducted by Igor Stiks

Updated on: 14 March 2012
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