The purpose of the conference, organised by the Centre for Peace Studies and the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity, Citizenship and Migration (CEDIM), was to present findings about attitudes and contexts in which racism and xenophobia are formed and about how the domestic public perceives ethnic minorities, refugees and migrants.
"The survey findings show that respondents have three predominant concerns - security, national identity and economy. But this is primarily about culture, which has emerged as the key problem," said Vedrana Baricevic of CEDIM.
Baricevic underlined that respondents' answers were restricted by the fact that most of them were given in the context of the migrant crisis.
Viktor Koska of CEDIM said that the Croatian society was significantly divided and did not have a unanimous attitude on all categories of ethnic minorities. Despite that, Croats recognise that regions with a long tradition of multiculturalism are economically more developed, he added.
"There are, however, reservations towards the Serb and the Roma ethnic minority. We can see on that example that the circumstances in the 1990s have resulted in reservations towards the Serb minority," said Koska.
The survey shows that the problem with the Serb minority can be solved and overcome in the long run, as it has been recognised that that minority can give an important contribution to the Croatian society.
In the long run, the perception of the Roma minority poses a more serious problem because that minority lacks sufficient social capital, own resources, intellectual capacity or access to positions of power, said Koska.
The survey, financed as part of the IPA 2012 programme, covered members of ethnic minorities, refugees and asylum seekers, the general population and system stakeholders. It was conducted from February to October 2016 and focused on views on the society and its main problems, differences, attitudes to immigrants and ethnic minorities, existing institutional solutions, etc.
Sara Kekus of CMS said she regretted the negative attitude of Croatian citizens to refugees and ethnic minorities.
"During the migrant crisis, a shift in political and media discourse was visible, with attitudes to refugees becoming negative," she said.