Both my Croatian passport and identity card are expiring this September. So many months ahead, I already dread the two expiration dates, for I dread renewing the two documents. To put it bluntly, the Croatian bureaucracy scares the shit out of me. Concerning the passport, I have already decided not to renew it. As far as the Croatian authorities are concerned, I do not have to have one, anyway. In addition, I can travel wherever I want with my British passport. In fact, my freedom to travel can only be enhanced this way.

The identity card is another bag of beans, though. By Croatian law, I must have it on me at all times. I would gladly renounce my Croatian citizenship, but Croatia is not yet in the European Union. The accession will take place in July 2013. As a British citizen, I would be exposed to all sorts of abuse in the meanwhile. The only “real” connection with this country is my house in Motovun, and the local authorities in the hilltown would be sure to do whatever they could to make this bit of ownership a most bitter experience for me. At any rate, I am already a foreigner in their view.

In short, I may have to renew my damned identity card this September. For the last time, though. Once in the Union, Croatia will face ever more pressure from Brussels concerning the rights of foreigners residing in the country. Thus I can renounce my Croatian citizenship in a few years, or simply let my identity card lapse when it comes up for renewal the next time around, which will be in another ten years. The way things are shaping, as a British citizen I will eventually be protected even better than a Croat in his own country.

Addendum (February 28, 2012)

As if to buttress my resolution to cut all ties with Croatia, and as soon as possible, yesterday I received a piece of registered mail from some tax office in Pazin. It is about my health-insurance payments, which I have regularly covered every single month for some eight years. The envelope bore an ominous stamp, though: “Tax Procedure.” By the way, this translation I got from Google Translate, for the pitiful Croatian is otherwise untranslatable. Procedure, what procedure? Why registered mail, as well? All the health-insurance office in Pazin actually wants me to do is to pay my monthly bill. Tax procedure, my ass. This is just another example of the Croatian bureaucratic quagmire. Nay, quicksand. And yet another reason why I hate Pazin from the bottom of my heart.