Opening the event, OSCE Mission chief Peter Semneby said, among other things, that Croatia had made considerable progress with regard to the election legislation in recent months, which was visible from a report of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODHIR). He added that this was also evidenced by the fact that the ODIHR did not envisage a monitoring mission for the upcoming presidential elections in the country.
Croatia is on the road to the European Union and the international community will fully support it on that road, Semneby said.
A state secretary at the Central State Office for Administration, Antun Palaric, said Croatia was a stable democracy, that in the past 13 years it had achieved considerable progress in the development of institutions and that citizens' trust in those institutions was increasing. Efforts have been made to computerise the voters' register and citizens can view that register on the web now, Palaric said. He recalled that the government had called elections for national minority councils, thus ensuring better minority protection.
Croatian Parliament vice-president Luka Bebic said that the Sabor was paying special attention to the election legislation, and that it had solved unresolved issues and removed drawbacks.
"We have decided that the elections should be monitored by the Supreme Court and not bodies of the state administration, to prevent any possible bias," Bebic said.
Speaking about minority representation in the parliament, Bebic said that eight minority representatives were sitting in the parliament - three of them were Serb deputies and the five others represented other national minorities.
We have an exemplary constitutional law on the rights of national minorities, but its full implementation is hampered by lack of funds, Bebic said.
The president of the Supreme Court and the State Election Commission, Ivica Crnic, said the Commission was an ad hoc body which was appointed every year by the Constitutional Court and consisted of Supreme Court judges and prominent legal experts.
He recalled that back in 2002 the State Election Commission had requested setting up a permanent election body, but although the initiative was formally accepted, no relevant document had been prepared for parliamentary discussion. There is no reason for European election standards to be introduced in that segment as well, Crnic concluded.