Making Citizens Beyond the Borders
The decision to extend citizenship to nonresidents grows out of specific identity projects undertaken, most often, by right-wing governments and results in fluid and variable conditions of membership.
The Evolution of the Croatian Citizenship Regime: From Independence to EU Integration
Following the break up of the Former Yugoslavia, the main challenges the newly established republics faced were to consolidate their statehood and to define the membership criteria of their political communities. These processes were complex since the reality of the newly independent republics did not fit the imaginations of ethno-political entrepreneurs who sought the congruence of ethnic communities and state borders. The Croatian case displays almost all of the typical controversies and challenges associated to the former Yugoslavia successor states’ regimes: ethnic engineering through citizenship policies, state exclusion and self exclusion of ethnic minorities from the core citizenry and liberalisation of the citizenship regime in the light of EU integration. While over the last twenty years Croatia established a stable legal framework for its citizenship, the scope of rights recognised for particular categories of citizens was the object of the gradual change. By closely scrutinising the citizenship policies relating to two main target groups, the Croatian diaspora and the Serb minority, this paper will argue that the Croatian citizenship regime has evolved through two stages of development over the last two decades. The citizenship debate during the first stage was concerned primarily with the ‘status dimension’ while the debate during the second stage moved towards the ‘rights dimensions’ of citizenship. Finally, the last section of this paper will highlight a possible third stage of the further evolution of the Croatian citizenship regime that may develop as the outcome of Croatian accession to the EU.
Wind of Change: The Croatian Government’s Turn towards a Policy of Ethnic Reconciliation. EDAP paper, 6/2004
After almost a decade of nationalist HDZ rule in Croatia, the change of government in 2000 brought pro-minority governance and concrete implementation of minority rights legislation. In 2003, when a reformed HDZ came to power, the new government declared that the unconditional return of all refugees, regardless of their ethnicity and the return of their property constitutes the priority of its mandate. This shift in the treatment of minorities, particularly the Serb minority which is the second largest ethnic community in the country, is closely linked to the fact of the country’s key foreign policy priority of joining the European Union. Since the current government is striving to legitimize its mandate by supporting the country’s entry into the European Union, the state is obliged to comply with all conditionality policies pursued by the Union, including respect for and protection of minorities. This paper examines how the issue of minority protection was perceived and realized in Croatia in thirteen years of the country’s independence by tracing amendments in Croatian legislation for minority protection. The paper emphasises that even though the potential accession to the European Union has motivated politicians to publically advocate the proper inclusion of minorities, the majority of Croatians remain reluctant to accept the need for minority protection. The domestic legislative framework has been brought in line with international minority protection standards, and implementation of minority rights has become more active. Nevertheless, the absence of broad acceptance of minorities constitutes major obstacle for the true realization of minority rights in Croatia.