In attendance was the chief of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Vukovar Office, Valeriu Florean, and Serbia and Montenegro's consul in the eastern town, Milan Sapic.
ZVO president Jovan Ajdukovic said the importance of the Erdut Agreement lay in the fact that it brought peace, paved the way for reason, and established the territorial integrity of Croatia without resorting to military force.
He said the inconsistent implementation of the agreement made Croatian Serbs legally insecure because those accused of war crimes and court documents regarding them had not been reviewed yet. He said Croatia issued "an inappropriate number" of arrest warrants for war crime suspects, and that more than 4,000 of over 5,500 referred to Serbs.
Ajdukovic said the ZVO advocated the consistent application of Croatia's Constitution and laws, notably on amnesty and convalidation, documents on the establishment of the ZVO, and the agreement the Independent Serb Democratic Party (SDSS) reached with the Government in late 2003.
Ajdukovic said that although the Danube River Region was reintegrated into the Croatian constitutional and legal order over the past eight years, Croatian Serb citizens had not.
OSCE official Florean said the Erdut Agreement was very important for life in the Danube River Region as well as for peace throughout Southeast Europe.
The agreement was signed on 12 November 1996. The reintegration of eastern Croatia ended on 15 January 1998, which also ended the U.N.'s mission in Croatia and started refugee returns and reconstruction in the area.