Bosnians Face Being Deprived of Citizenship

Bosnia's Ministry of Civil Affairs says the number of citizens who renounce or lose Bosnian citizenship could rise dramatically if no political agreement on the Law on Citizenship is reached soon. 15,847 have been removed from the citizens' registry over the past 15 years.

Article 17 of the Law on Citizenship provides that citizens who have not renounced the citizenships of other countries with which Bosnia has not signed dual citizenship agreements, will lose citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina by January 1, 2013.

The 1995 Dayton peace agreement, signed to stop the 1992-5 war, specified that Bosnian citizens living abroad may only hold the citizenship of another state if there is a bilateral agreement between Bosnia and that state.

Four years after the war, in 1999, the Law on Citizenship came into effect.

Three years after that, the High Representative Paddy Ashdown passed the decision amending the Law on Citizenship, which extended the deadline for concluding bilateral agreements on dual citizenship to January 1, 2013.

Ten years on, no fresh deal looks close to being reached this year.

Zorica Rulj, from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told Balkan Insight that the ministry was aware of the law's meaning, but there was nothing more that they could do.

The ministry was trying to find a solution through agreements on dual citizenship with those countries in which a large number of Bosnian citizens lived, Rulj said.

“We prepared an agreement with the Croatia and Montenegro but this was stopped in the State Presidency,” she said, adding that some Western countries were ready to sign such agreements.

In the last meeting of the State Presidency, the Bosniak member, Haris Silajdzic, vetoed a decision to sign bilateral agreements with Montenegro and Croatia.

His argument was that the victims of the war and refugees had mostly fled to the US, New Zealand and Canada, none of which had signed bilateral agreements of the kind that Bosnian citizens needed to keep both citizenships.

Zaim Pasic, president of the World Diaspora Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has warned that the law might automatically erase the citizenship of about 1.3 million Bosnians.

If the bilateral agreement with Croatia is not reached, a large number of Bosnian Croats, who also possess citizenship of Croatia, will lose Bosnian citizenship, while still living in their own country.

Martin Raguz, vice-president of the Croatian Democratic Union 1990, HDZ 1990, has said about 100,000 Croats in Bosnia could lose their citizenship of Bosnia if no agreement on dual citizenship is signed with Croatia.