Serbs used to be a constituent nation in the Socialist Republic of Croatia and when Croatia became independent, they became a national minority. During and after the war of the 1990s, their position was made more difficult – many left in the first years, and many of those who stayed were perceived as the only culprits for the war and war crimes and exposed to various attacks (evictions, sackings and even murder). The biggest exodus of Serbs occurred in August 1995, during the military-police operation Storm, when 200,000 persons fled from the territory of the former area of SAO Krajina in a matter of several days.

Those who remained were under physical threat – their property was stolen and appropriated and many were killed – while all of this happened without an appropriate response from the authorities. Due to the inefficient work of the prosecution and the Croatian judiciary, the exact perpetrators were only rarely brought to justice for crimes committed against Serb victims.

Refugees mostly do not return because the areas where they used to live remain underdeveloped in terms of infrastructure, they face discrimination and various administrative obstacles.
In 2002, following pressures from the international community, the Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities was adopted in Croatia. It guarantees the rights and “positive” measures aimed at achieving active and efficient participation of minorities in the society, public spaces and at all levels of governance. The Act provides additional guarantees of equality – e.g. proportional representation in bodies of state administration, judiciary, and police. The Act also stipulates that, under the same conditions, members of minorities have an advantage in filling positions in the above-mentioned bodies. Unfortunately, these solutions are not applied in practice, which weakens the significance and legal force of this Constitutional Act.

According to SNV’s research, the percentage of Serbs employed in public administration dropped from 2.35% in 2013 to 2.11% in 2018. In 2018, Serbs were registered to be underrepresented in local and regional self-government where they only make up 1.86%, while the representation of Serbs in judiciary totals 2.1%.

Links

The Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities
Report on the implementation of the Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities (in Croatian)

According to the 2021 census, Serbs make up 3.20% of the Croatian population, while in 1991 they made up 12.16% of the total population. Numerically, there are 123.892 Serbs in Croatia, of which
9.18% are 0 to 19 years old, 48.10% are of working age, from 20 to 65 years old, while 42.07% belong to the 65-and-over age group comprising 52.907 Serbs.

The time of the most intense return was in the period from 2000 to 2003. The UNHCR, the international organisation which has been directly involved in the refugee return process, registered 132.922 Serbs who returned to Croatia. The UNHCR research conducted in 2012 revealed a grim reality, namely, that only 48% of returnees later stayed in Croatia. This fact demonstrates that the legal framework and living conditions are set against returnees. Ensuring access to housing and employment, health and social care provisions, and availability of education are basic conditions every returnee should have, but they were denied these provisions, and consequently choose to leave Croatia again. Today, the official number of returnees remains very low, but their return and permanent stay should be encouraged.

The Serb National Council advises returnees, prewar residents of Croatia, to apply for returnee status with the authorised council office immediately following their return, which would facilitate their resocialisation and in the case of foreign citizens speed up the process of acquiring the status of foreigner with permanent residence in Croatia.

Housing care is a comprehensive legal category that implies providing housing for returnees in state-owned flats and houses.

Every year in January, potential returnees can petition the appropriate authorities with a request to be granted a lease of a house or flat, or construction material. Given the large number of such petitions, priority lists are made at the county level. The Central State Office for Reconstruction and Housing Care creates plans and secures resources to meet housing needs (apart from returnees, displaced persons, socially vulnerable persons and victims of violence are also eligible). Given that these resources are modest and insufficient, Serb returnees wait for years for their housing issue to be resolved since larger and younger families of Croatian origin are given priority. In January 2020, 7,976 housing care requests were received, while the Central State Office for Reconstruction and Housing Care secured funding to resolve only 589, which means that only 7.4% of applicants will realise their right to housing care. Each year priority lists are updated with newly received applications, which is discouraging for Serb families. Former tenancy right holders are a category of returnees who mostly come back to urban areas. Their requests for housing care, a subsidiary legal institute to tenancy right, are processed by counties and the City of Zagreb. Pre-war families of former tenancy right holders can today submit only one request for housing care, regardless of the fact that their members, who were younger at the time, are now independent adults who often have families of their own. The problem such applicants face is the long waiting period, especially in coastal cities (Zadar, Šibenik, Split and especially Dubrovnik). The waiting period is frequently longer than five years. If the person waiting to be assigned an apartment dies, and if this person was single, his or her successors cannot continue the process of housing care.

Such unfavourable circumstances led to a state of affairs in which, according to the Central State Office, in 2019, not a single application submitted by a former tenancy right holder was granted.

Links

Zakon o stambenom zbrinjavanju na potpomognutim područjima
Zakon o područjima posebne državne skrbi
Uredba o kriterijima za bodovanje prijava za stambeno zbrinjavanje
Zakon o najmu stanova
Zakon o obveznim odnosima
Zakon o obnovi
Uredba o prodajnoj cijeni obiteljske kuće ili stana u državnom vlasništvu kojima upravlja Središnji državni ured za obnovu i stambeno zbrinjavanje
Uredba o utvrđivanju statusa bivših nositelja stanarskih prava i članova njihovih obitelji, te uvjetima i postupku njihovog stambenog zbrinjavanja

The return of Serb refugees is not possible without first resolving their status issues. Returnees who are citizens of other former Yugoslav republics, and there are many such among returnees, have the status of a foreigner.

The Foreigners Act

The Foreigners Act stipulates that foreigners who return to Croatia within the framework of the returns program, who had registered residency in Croatia on 8 October 1991, have the right to permanent residency. Citizens of a third country need to have temporary residency at the moment when their request for permanent residency is approved. This means that a returnee must first regulate their temporary residency in Croatia, and only then can submit a request for acquiring the status of a “foreigner with permanent residency”. Only the final decision granting the right to returnee status, housing care or reconstruction of a family home, is considered as proof while resolving a request for temporary or permanent residency. Persons who exercise their right to temporary residency for humanitarian reasons may be absent from Croatia for a maximum of 60 days in the year in which they have the right to temporary residency. They have to regulate healthcare, which can be done either by personal payments to the Croatian Institute for Public Health (HZZO) or with a health insurance certificate issued by the HZZO, verified by a foreign health insurance provider in the country where the person has secured healthcare. A request to extend the temporary residency is submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs no later than 60 days before the expiry of the valid residency permit, and the person can reside in the Republic of Croatia until a decision is reached regarding this request. The request for approval of the status of a “foreigner with permanent residency in the Republic of Croatia” can be submitted after five (5) years of continuous temporary residency.

Croatian Citizenship Act

A person who has realised the status of a foreigner with permanent residency in the Republic of Croatia can submit a request for Croatian citizenship by naturalisation.

The website of the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) provides information about the modality, conditions, and procedure of acquiring Croatian citizenship.

We should also mention the changes to the Croatian Citizenship Act, which came into effect on 1 January 2020, related to acquiring Croatian citizenship based on origin in a situation when a person was born outside of the Republic of Croatia, is older than 21, and had at least one parent who was a Croatian citizen at the moment of their birth. Many interested individuals greeted such a legal solution with approval, however, when they attempted to submit their applications at Croatian consulates, they were met with a discouraging interpretation. The interpretation is that this legal provision refers only to the persons born after the Croatian Citizenship Act (8 October 1991) came into effect, with the explanation that a different application would lead to a violation of the principle of continuity of former republic citizenships into national citizenships of the newly founded states on the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Regulations on the conditions for establishing and losing the status of refugee, displaced person or returnee

Individuals, who had registered residency in the Republic of Croatia as of October 8, 1991 and were registered as refugees in a country of exile, are eligible to apply for returnee status. This request is submitted to the competent county office according to the place of return no later than 90 days from the day of return. Returnee status enables foreign citizens – returnees to the Republic of Croatia to acquire the status of a foreigner with permanent residency in the Republic of Croatia via an accelerated process, and subsequently to submit a request for Croatian citizenship.

The notion of “hate crime” was introduced into Croatian legislation in 2006. It is defined as a criminal offence committed “on the basis of race, skin colour, sex, sexual orientation, language, belief, political or other conviction, national or social origin, property, birth, education, social status, age, health status or other characteristics” (Article 89, Paragraph 36 of the Criminal Code).

The SNV has been following the emergence of hate crimes and hate speech directed against Serbs and along with the annual publication of its Bulletin, it extends support to victims by offering them free legal aid and informing them of their rights guaranteed by the Law. A high percentage of victims of hate crimes are victims of secondary and repeated victimisation, intimidation, and retaliation.

More than two decades after the end of the last war in Croatia, there is still no official, publicly available list of all citizens who perished in the war. There have been various research efforts, differing from each other, and their assessments vary from 18,000 to 23,000 people, including both the dead and the missing.

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