Speaking at a press conference in Zagreb, Dzakula recalled that at a conference in Sarajevo in January this year Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia-Montenegro and Croatia had agreed joint activities aimed at resolving the refugee issue by the end of 2006.
The plan adopted by the Croatian government does not provide for necessary legislative changes and administrative and budgetary measures, and sets a number of unrealistic time limits that partly discourage refugees from returning to their pre-war homes, Dzakula said.
In this context he cited the end of 2005 as a planned deadline for full property restitution and the plan to provide housing for 1,000 former tenancy right holders in the course of next year.
Dzakula added that about 3,600 applications for housing had been received to date and that 6,000 to 7,000 more such requests were expected by the end of this year.
Dzakula called for the extension of deadlines for regulating the status of people who were born or have lived in Croatia for a long time but have not yet been granted Croatian citizenship. He also urged the government to recognise their years of pensionable employment.
Dzakula said that there should be no deadlines for the submission by former tenancy right holders of applications for housing outside war-affected areas and that those people should be allowed to buy housing under more favourable conditions and according to the model used by other tenancy rights holders when they purchased their apartments.
Dzakula called on the government to draw up a new plan in cooperation with non-governmental organisations to resolve the refugee issue. He noted that such a plan should define incentives for return, such as employment of young people and proportionate employment of ethnic minorities in public services, in accordance with the Constitutional Law on the Rights of the National Minorities.
According to the SDF, 70,000 out of 120,000 Serbs who have returned to Croatia still work in other countries.
Dzakula said that if all obstacles to refugee return were removed, responsibility would be shifted onto refugees themselves, and international pressure on Croatia would also ease.