If the EU does build a database of US citizens’ lineage and then starts denying US citizens of Croatian descent entry not only would that be hugely ironic it would also cause a pretty emphatic response from the US.
There is only one US country and only one US citizen.
The argument people are making comparing EU countries to US states is absurd.
They might as well be saying “Well what if the EU decided not to allow visa free entry to New Zealand citizens from the city of Auckland. Huzzah! Therefore US should treat all EU countries the same!”
See how absurd that is? Because a US state has just as much control over immigration and foreign policy or national defense etc etc as does a New Zealand city, which is to say none.
Many European countries automatically make people their citizens by lineage, not place of birth. Sometimes with little restriction by the paternal line.
Being born in the US to Croatian parents will make you a citizen of both countries, no application required.
Croatia may not know about it, but you'll still be doing something illegal if such a person applies for an ETIAS and answers "No" to the question about being an EU citizen (which will make you ineligible for an ETIAS).
It would be even messier for them if they were born in Croatia and then immigrated to the US as a child.
That's how the US and Canadian implementations work.
> - There is a separate dispute between EU and US, because US imposes visas on five EU states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Cyprus). According the EU law, all EU countries should be treated equally or otherwise reciprocal measures should apply. There have been calls within the EU to respond tit for tat and impose EU visas on US citizens, if the issue does not get resolved soon.
So in the dispute above that is being hotly debated, Croatians (for example) want the EU to enforce visa free entry to the US as reciprocation for the visa free entry to the EU. But according to what you say, now US citizens who happen to be of Croatian descent don't have visa free entry to the EU and must get a Croatian passport.
But if it's the machine that's deciding these things based on the letter of the law, you might have a problem.
Maybe ETIAS will have a bigger carve-out for these situations than the US and Canada (which exempt eachothers' citizens). Or maybe they won't.
Wouldn't that be an unreliable test, since you could've renounced your citizenship or have been born to Canadian parents visiting Italy, since Italy is jus sanguinis [1]?
Now you may have to state Yes/No to a question about other citizenships, when the best answer for a lot of Americans (a nation of immigrants) will be “Don’t know for sure, maybe”.
Automatically?
Source?
Croatia: http://eudo-citizenship.eu/NationalDB/docs/CRO%20Law%20on%20...
Section 4: "A child acquires Croatian citizenship by origin: [various criteria about who your parents are]" There's no "may" or "can".
Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationality_law#Descent...
"A person born of a parent with German citizenship at the time of the child's birth is a German citizen. Place of birth is not a factor in citizenship determination based on parentage."
Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_nationality_law#Attrib...
"Italian citizenship is granted by birth through the paternal line, with no limit on the number of generations, or through the maternal line for individuals born after 1 January 1948."
France: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_nationality_law#French_...
"French citizenship by birth abroad to at least one French citizen The child (legitimate or natural) is French if at least one parent is French."
Some countries (like France) require the birth to be registered, while others do not.