GOVERNMENT ISSUES STATEMENT ON MINORITIES IN CONSTITUTION

( Editorial: --> 8843 ) ZAGREB, Dec 16 (Hina) - The Croatian government's communications office issued a statement on Tuesday to avoid any further misinterpretation of constitutional changes adopted by parliament on December 12. "The changes in the Croatian Constitution, as specified by President Franjo Tudjman in the explanation of his initiative, are aimed primarily at adjusting constitutional provisions to the reality and the new international order in this part of Europe, in which Croatia took an active part, unfortunately suffering great human and material losses," the statement said. "The government wishes to emphasise that the adoption of the constitutional provisions will not have any adverse effect on the status of the Slovene minority in Croatia. "The government remains firmly committed to providing full assistance to bodies of the Slovene minority in order to preserve their identity and protect their minority rights." "The government also wishes to remind that Croatia, as one of the few members of the Council of Europe, signed and ratified the Framework Convention on Minority Rights and the Convention on Minority Languages, which additionally guarantee the protection of all minority rights not only of Slovenes but also of other numerous minorities in Croatia, both those which are listed and those which are not explicitly named in the Constitution." The government stressed that very soon it would offer the Slovene government a draft bilateral agreement on the mutual protection of minorities. According to the 1991 census, more than 220,000 members of ethnic groups lived in Slovenia. The largest number of them -- 54,212 or 2.76 per cent of the overall population -- were Croats. However, the Slovene Constitution of 1992 cited only Italians and Hungarians as autochthonous minorities in Slovenia. Slovenia claims that Croats do not have characteristics of an autochthonous community. This year its parliament passed a declaration on Slovene minorities abroad, for the first time including in that group Slovenes living in Croatia. After the deletion of Slovenes from the preamble to the Croatian Constitution, Slovene state bodies hinted that symmetry between the Slovenes in Croatia, who accounted for 0.5 per cent of the population according to the 1991 census, and the Croats in Slovenia was not possible. (hina) vm mm 162213 MET dec 97