# Croatia says a man lives in Liberland. That could matter more than the €60 fine

**URL:** <https://forum.liberland.org/t/croatia-says-a-man-lives-in-liberland-that-could-matter-more-than-the-60-fine/1505>\
**Category:** News & Announcements\
**Created:** [September 7, 2026, 5:37am UTC](https://forum.liberland.org/t/croatia-says-a-man-lives-in-liberland-that-could-matter-more-than-the-60-fine/1505 "2026-09-07T05:37:22Z")\
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**Author:** ![system](https://liberland-forum-uploads.s3.dualstack.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/original/1X/6abd10e0ddd954516da9d7e97767088c14e048a7.png) [@system](https://forum.liberland.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2026, 5:37am UTC](https://forum.liberland.org/t/croatia-says-a-man-lives-in-liberland-that-could-matter-more-than-the-60-fine/1505/1 "2026-09-07T05:37:22Z")

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The fine itself is trivial: sixty euros plus administrative costs. What is written in it is not.

According to documents shared on 4 September 2026, Croatian police fined Roland Werner Frank for staying and camping at Gornja Siga, the seven-square-kilometre territory claimed by Liberland since 2015.

More importantly, the decision reportedly adds a second offence: giving false information about his residence. Roland is officially registered in the Croatian village of Batina, but police say that he has actually been staying in Gornja Siga since July 2026.

That matters.

Croatian residence law defines permanent residence as the place and address where a person has permanently settled and requires people to report their actual residence. Providing false information can itself constitute an offence. ([Gov.hr](https://gov.hr/?id=472&lang=en&url=print&utm_source=chatgpt.com))

By bringing that charge, police were not merely saying that Roland happened to be present in Gornja Siga on a particular day.

They were making a factual finding about where he was actually living.

Their answer was Gornja Siga.

In other words, Croatian authorities have put in writing that someone actually lives on territory routinely described as uninhabited.

For eleven years, one of the recurring descriptions of Gornja Siga has been emptiness: a territory without a permanent population. That point matters because a **permanent population is one of the traditional criteria associated with statehood**.

Croatian authorities have also previously used surprisingly state-like terminology of their own. In administrative proceedings concerning Liberland supporters, Liberland has been described as a **“parastatal entity”** or **“parastatal project.”** Published extracts identify, among others, decisions **UP/I-216-04-23-01/1873** and **NK UP/I-216-04-23-04/192**. ([Medium](https://liberlandtv.medium.com/croatia-now-calls-liberland-a-parastate-a-step-towards-recognition-6fdfdb18ea8c?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

[Croatia now calls Liberland a Parastate: A step towards recognition](https://liberlandtv.medium.com/croatia-now-calls-liberland-a-parastate-a-step-towards-recognition-6fdfdb18ea8c?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

None of that amounts to recognition of Liberland as a state. The word “parastatal” can just as easily be used critically to describe an entity imitating or assuming functions associated with a state.

But it makes the official language increasingly interesting.

Liberland is supposedly not a state.

Yet Croatian documents have called it a parastatal entity.

And now Croatian police have reportedly identified Gornja Siga as the place where persons actually live.

### Three offices, three answers

The contradiction becomes clearer when the recent documents are read chronologically.

On 24 July 2026, the Vukovar Port Authority confirmed that boats may not anchor or moor along the Gornja Siga stretch of the Danube. Roland had asked for permission to use a small boat for a volunteer clean-up operation.

On 30 July, the Authority refused an exemption and suggested contacting the police about reaching the area by land.

On 28 August, repeated on 2 September, the Osijek-Baranja police wrote that anyone lawfully present in Croatia enjoys freedom of movement and may access Gornja Siga, provided Croatian law is respected.

Then, in early September, police fined Roland for his presence there and stated that Gornja Siga, rather than Batina, was where he was actually staying.

So the same territory is simultaneously accessible, subject to Croatian enforcement and treated as the place where a person genuinely lives.

Roland also says that a notice originally sent to Germany was later delivered to him personally by police at Gornja Siga.

If the delivery record confirms this, the irony is difficult to miss.

Croatian authorities would have used Gornja Siga as the practical location at which to find a man whom they were simultaneously penalising for living there.

### Why Croatia has a problem

The underlying border dispute explains why this becomes legally awkward.

Croatia and Serbia disagree about where their border runs along this part of the Danube. Croatia's position is based on historical cadastral boundaries, while Serbia favours a boundary following the present course of the river.

Croatian courts themselves have expressly described this disagreement: Croatia considers the boundary to follow cadastral limits, while Serbia argues for the middle of the Danube. They have also held that Gornja Siga remains within an unresolved border area while Croatian authorities exercise control there for purposes including protection of the EU and Schengen external border. ([Zakon](https://www.zakon.hr/c/sudska-praksa/821212/us-i-1065-2024-16---upravni-sud-u-osijeku?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

That distinction matters.

Accepting the modern Danube channel wholesale as the international boundary would potentially undermine Croatia's position concerning larger tracts of land lying on the opposite side of the river.

Gornja Siga therefore sits in an unusual position: Croatia exercises considerable authority there while its own preferred theory of the international boundary does not simply turn the western bank into ordinary Croatian territory.

And that produces an even more difficult problem.

### Jurisdiction when Croatia prosecutes you. No jurisdiction when you ask for protection?

Croatian authorities patrol Gornja Siga, remove people from it and enforce Croatian law there.

Croatian administrative courts have now gone further and expressly upheld Croatian authority and jurisdiction to remove people from Gornja Siga. In one 2024 case, the Administrative Court in Osijek concluded that Croatian authorities exercise supervision and control there and therefore possessed the authority and jurisdiction to expel an EEA national from the area. ([Zakon](https://www.zakon.hr/c/sudska-praksa/821212/us-i-1065-2024-16---upravni-sud-u-osijeku?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

Fine.

But if Croatia has jurisdiction over Gornja Siga when it wishes to prosecute, fine, remove or otherwise coerce someone, the same proposition has consequences in the opposite direction.

People affected by Croatian action must also be able to invoke Croatian law, access Croatian institutions and seek remedies against allegedly unlawful conduct.

And this is where the picture becomes much harder to reconcile.

Liberland has previously reported that when its members attempted to pursue Croatian remedies concerning property allegedly removed or destroyed at Gornja Siga, Croatian institutions declined to act on jurisdictional grounds. One Liberland account states that after an action concerning property taken by Hrvatske Šume was filed, the prosecutor and court in Osijek responded that the events occurred outside their jurisdiction. ([Liberland](https://www.liberland.io/news/579-how-does-a-community-become-a-state-the-case-of-liberland?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

More recently, Liberland has described the same broader problem in terms of civil disputes, criminal complaints and property claims: Croatia asserts jurisdiction for penal enforcement but, according to those accounts, Croatian institutions have rejected at least some attempts by affected persons to invoke that same legal system for protection. ([Liberland](https://liberland.io/news/701-response-to-veernji-list-article-on-liberland-jurisdiction?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

That creates a simple question:

**If Croatia has jurisdiction to punish a person in Gornja Siga, how can Croatian jurisdiction disappear when that same person asks Croatian institutions to protect his rights there?**

A legal system cannot coherently operate only in one direction.

If Croatian officials have legal authority to use coercive powers in Gornja Siga, there must also be legal accountability for the exercise of those powers.

Jurisdiction cannot mean:

**Croatian law applies when Croatia fines you.**

but

**Croatian law does not apply when you bring a case against Croatian actors.**

At minimum, Croatia therefore needs a coherent explanation of exactly what jurisdiction it claims in Gornja Siga, which institutions are competent, what legal rules apply and what remedies are available to people affected by Croatian state action.

And now the residence decision adds another layer.

Croatian authorities are no longer merely exercising police control over Gornja Siga.

They have reportedly used Croatian residence law to determine that a person actually lives there.

### The residence paradox

That is particularly striking because Croatian residence law itself defines residence geographically.

A person's permanent residence is not an abstract relationship with a country. Croatian law defines it as the **place and address in the Republic of Croatia where the person has permanently settled** , while temporary residence similarly concerns a place and address at which the person actually resides. ([Gov.hr](https://gov.hr/?id=472&lang=en&url=print&utm_source=chatgpt.com))

That creates an obvious question for the authorities.

If Roland's registered Croatian residence in Batina is false because he actually lives at Gornja Siga, what exactly is his legally correct residence supposed to be?

If the answer is Gornja Siga, Croatian authorities have formally acknowledged actual habitation there.

If the answer cannot be Gornja Siga because it is not an ordinary Croatian address or settlement, then penalising him for failing to register the place where the authorities themselves say he actually lives becomes considerably stranger.

Either way, the decision is significant far beyond its €60 penalty.

### What this proves — and what it does not

None of this constitutes Croatian recognition of Liberland.

A police decision about residence does not determine sovereignty. It does not settle the Croatian-Serbian border dispute. It does not establish that Liberland satisfies all requirements of statehood.

And Croatia has a clear legal answer available to part of the argument: its courts maintain that Gornja Siga is an unresolved border area over which Croatian authorities may exercise supervision and control pending final delimitation. ([Zakon](https://www.zakon.hr/c/sudska-praksa/821212/us-i-1065-2024-16---upravni-sud-u-osijeku?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

That distinction should not be ignored.

But neither should the documents.

They undermine a much narrower proposition: that Gornja Siga can simply be dismissed as empty territory with no actual inhabitants.

Croatian police themselves have now reportedly said otherwise.

Someone lives there.

Indeed, according to their own case, he has lived there for months.

That fact does not prove that Liberland is a state.

But **permanent population is one of the traditional criteria of statehood** , and an official finding by the authorities most actively contesting Liberland's position is unusually powerful evidence on that particular factual question.

The €60 fine may therefore end up being the least interesting part of the document.

**The important sentence is the one explaining where Roland Werner Frank actually lives.**