ZAGREB, Feb 17 (Hina) - Croatian Parliament President Vladimir Seks on Tuesday held talks with the OSCE high commissioner for ethnic minorities, Rolf Ekeus, on the implementation of the constitutional law on ethnic minorities' rights
and exercising thereof, parliament's public relations service said in a press release.
ZAGREB, Feb 17 (Hina) - Croatian Parliament President Vladimir Seks on
Tuesday held talks with the OSCE high commissioner for ethnic
minorities, Rolf Ekeus, on the implementation of the constitutional
law on ethnic minorities' rights and exercising thereof, parliament's
public relations service said in a press release.#L#
Ambassador Ekeus said he was pleased the Croatian parliament had
successfully completed the debate on the constitutional law on ethnic
minorities' rights since his last visit to the country. He was
interested in the current application of legislation regulating
minorities' issues.
Seks said the legal framework of the protection and rights of ethnic
minorities had been rounded off with the adoption of the
constitutional law on their rights and laws on education in and the
use of their languages and alphabets. New legislation is not expected,
he added.
Seks went on to say that an important step in the application of
current legislation were the recent by-elections for ethnic
minorities' councils and councillors in local and regional
self-government bodies which, despite the relatively modest turnout,
were held in accordance with the aforementioned constitutional law.
Croatia is committed to having ethnic minorities exercise all their
legal rights and fully integrate into the public and political life,
as evidenced by the agreements the government has signed with ethnic
minorities' parliamentary representatives, it was said. Thanks to
these agreements, minority representatives have already been appointed
to certain levels of the executive authority and parliament, it was
added.
(Hina) ha sb