Committee members from the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Party of Rights (HSP) are afraid the Convention will result in changes to the Citizenship Law and that Croats will be entitled to Croatian citizenship only if they actually reside in Croatia.
"I will never agree to the Convention if it means that for Croats to acquire citizenship the terms will be tougher than those stipulated by the 1991 Citizenship Law," said committee chairwoman Zdenka Babic-Petricevic, alluding to terms for granting Croatia's citizenship to ethnic kin living in neighbouring countries and in the Croatian Diaspora.
Also in attendance at the session was Pilar Institute manager Vlado Sakic, who said that Croats abroad should be provided with positive discrimination before other citizenship seekers as an encouragement to the demographic policy.
The debate heard that in 50 years Croatia will have enough citizens but not enough Croats.
The committee's HDZ and HSP members said the existing Citizenship Law does not clash with the European Convention. They urged Assistant Interior Minister Zarko Katic to say if the law and which of its provisions need changing.
Katic said that 26 Council of Europe member-states have signed the Convention to date and that it is in force in 11.
The Convention reads that every state within its laws stipulates who its citizens are but sets frameworks in which it is possible to obtain citizenship via naturalisation, by having actually resided in a country for a maximum 10 years.