ZAGREB, Nov 16 (Hina) - Croatia will not return apartments to Serb refugees who used to have tenancy rights but willingly abandoned them, which is a big misunderstanding between the government and the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Vice Premier Zeljka Antunovic told Croatian Radio on Friday. In its latest report on Croatia's fulfilment of international obligations, the OSCE said that one of the problems in the return of refugees were the tenancy rights of Serb refugees. The category of "tenancy rights" was cancelled in 1996 when a law on apartment lease was passed. Instead of tenancy rights, tenants were enabled to purchase the apartments at a favourable price, something those who had abandoned them lost because they had not been living in the apartments for the preceding six months. The head of the OSCE Mission to Croatia, Bernard Poncet, said the mission would continue to
ZAGREB, Nov 16 (Hina) - Croatia will not return apartments to Serb
refugees who used to have tenancy rights but willingly abandoned
them, which is a big misunderstanding between the government and
the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
Vice Premier Zeljka Antunovic told Croatian Radio on Friday.
In its latest report on Croatia's fulfilment of international
obligations, the OSCE said that one of the problems in the return of
refugees were the tenancy rights of Serb refugees. The category of
"tenancy rights" was cancelled in 1996 when a law on apartment lease
was passed. Instead of tenancy rights, tenants were enabled to
purchase the apartments at a favourable price, something those who
had abandoned them lost because they had not been living in the
apartments for the preceding six months.
The head of the OSCE Mission to Croatia, Bernard Poncet, said the
mission would continue to pressure the government to provide a
legal framework for property restitution or adequate compensation
for lost ownership rights, which refer to 50,000-60,000
households.
"Tenancy rights are not ownership rights, regardless of the fact
that they contain some elements of ownership rights, and nobody in
Croatia is obliged to pay damages to the bearer of tenancy rights,"
Antunovic said.
"They want to... cash this intention of the international
community, buy an apartment for a very small amount of money, sell
it at a higher price and live somewhere else in the world with the
profit. This is the fraud that some want to forcefully implicate the
Croatian government in, and we are not going to agree to this, nor
can anyone force us to," said Antunovic.
(hina) it sb