Today 27 of the EU member states’ passports are a shade of burgundy, only one, the Croatian, remaining unique…



Besides Croatia, passport booklets of all other 27 member states share a common format. This common format features burgundy-coloured covers emblazoned—in the official language of the issuing country, and sometimes its translation into English and French, with the title “European Union”, followed by the name of the member state, its coat of arms, and the biometric passport symbol.

The Croatian passport remains dark blue and is the odd one out in the EU. So are there any plans to change and conform with the rest of the member states?

“The Croatian biometric passport, which has been issued since 29 June 2009, by its appearance and electronic protection meet EU standards that define the conditions to be met by biometric passports. Stating belonging European Union and changes in the colour of the booklet from blue to the so-called burgundy-red, is not an obligation, and for now there is no plan to change the colour of the passport, ” a spokesperson from the Ministry of Internal Affairs told portal CroExpress.

So for now the Croatian passport will happily remain the ‘blue’ sheep of the EU family.