Addressing a news conference in Vukovar on Thursday, following an urgent ZVO session which was prompted by yesterday's adoption of the amendments to the said legislation, Crnogorac said that it was a motion of the Croatian People's Party (HNS) to erase a provision which had enabled the ZVO to act as a legal personality in parts of eastern Croatia -- Vukovar-Srijem County and Osijek-Baranja County until yesterday's changes.
"We are deeply disappointed by the fact that a huge opportunity was missed to finally define the legal status of the ZVO and to enable it to work fully and with no obstacles," Crnogorac said.
He recalled that the ZVO was founded on 15 October 1998 in accordance with a Croatian government decision. The decision was legally based on the Erdut Agreement and on a government letter of intent for the continuation of peaceful reintegration after 1997.
The ZVO cares for the protection of human, civil and ethnic rights of ethnic Serbs in the two counties and for their educational and cultural autonomy.
Amendments to the Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities, adopted by the Croatian parliament on Wednesday, undermine the acquired rights of the Serb national minority, Serbian Parliament MP Janko Veselinovic said in Zagreb today, while Croatian officials responded that changes to Croatia's Constitution and Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities were a step forward in the protection of ethnic minorities living in the country.
Serbian officials expressed their disagreement with changes to the Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities at a session of the Croatian-Serbian intergovernmental committee in charge of implementing the two countries' agreement on the protection of ethnic minorities, held at the Croatian Foreign Ministry.