MINORITY REP'S HOPE LAW ON THEIR RIGHTS WILL BE ADOPTED FRIDAY

ZAGREB, Dec 11 (Hina) - Representatives of the Serb and Italian minorities hope parliament will adopt a constitutional bill on national minorities' rights, whose text has been harmonised and on which political parties have reached a consensus without difficulty at Friday's session. #L# The president of the Serb People's Council, Milorad Pupovac, said on Thursday he hoped this was the last press conference on the subject. A positive factor and assumption for the passing of said law is the fact that political parties and minority representatives had never agreed as much regarding the passing of this law as in recent talks, he said. "This consensus is what political activity is aimed at preserving and advancing," said Pupovac. According to Radin, after seven years of waiting, parliament is finally voting on a bill important to national minorities. Minority representatives have managed to agree about the law's text with representatives of all parliamentary bodies through useful dialogue, he said. Radin praised an initiative by the opposition's Croatian Democratic Union envisaging that besides voting on the bill on Friday, parliament should also adopt by consensus a resolution to lobby European bodies for Croatia's admission to the European Union as soon as possible. According to the final version of the constitutional bill on minorities' rights, minorities will elect between five and eight MPs in a special constituency. Minorities whose population share exceeds 1.5 percent, which in Croatia's case refers only to Serbs, would have between one and three MPs, depending on the electoral turnout. It has also been agreed that the bill should determine the minimum number of minority MPs, at least five, and that the election law should provide room for other solutions as well. (hina) ha sb