Pero Kovacevic of the Party of Rights said the protection of ethnic minorities in Croatia was better than in the European Union. He added he doubted that Serbia and Montenegro would implement the agreement.
He said the position of Croats in Serbia and Montenegro and the northern province of Vojvodina was deteriorating and that there were no guarantees that this would change overnight.
Kovacevic recalled that Vojvodina's Novi Sad Television had cancelled a Croatian language programme. He said the Croatian government's reaction had been tepid, as had the reaction to the recently re-established government in exile of the Republic of Serb Krajina, the unrecognised statelet self-styled by Croatian Serb rebels in the early 1990s.
Milorad Pupovac of the Independent Democratic Serb Party said the minority agreement was the best answer to those who set up such governments because it confirmed the new reality which he added the Serbs in Croatia had accepted.
Zlatko Tomcic of the Peasant Party said that 22,000 Croats had fled the Srijem area in the 1990s due to the extremism of Vojislav Seselj's Radicals. He added those Croats now lived in Croatia and that no word had been said about their return to Srijem.
Parliament today wrapped up a debate on the ratification of the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings.
The session resumes on Friday.