"We believe that the Serbian-Croatian relations are unnecessarily burdened by the so-called Bunjevci issue and that the Bunjevci Croat community in northern Backa (a part of Vojvodina) should be encouraged to be an active element in good neighbourly and pro-European relations between the two nations," the DSHV party said in a statement on Saturday.
The introduction of the Bunjevci language into schools has been asked by the Bunjevci national council in Serbia-Montenegro, an umbrella organisation of Bunjevci who negate their Croat language.
According to some experts the Bunjevci language is actually an ikavian dialect of the Croatian language.
Vojvodina Croat representatives claim that Bunjevci are a local Croat ethnic group whose members deny their Croat origin,
The DSHV says it will ask the Council of Europe to help protect rights of Croats in the Serbian province of Vojvodina if the authorities continue to actively support efforts to make another minority out of the part of the Croat community and back plans to recognise a Croatian Bunjevci dialect as a separate language.
"This issue should not be considered only from the point of view of nature and law or through objective criteria for the existence of a nation and ethnic minorities, but one should raise a question who else has the interests in and what forces want to establish a new independent ethnic group from what is the undoubtedly Croatian ethnic group (everywhere except in Serbia)," the DSHV said.
It recalls that the "artificial ways" to make out of the Bunjevci dialect an official language is contrary to the recently ratified European charter on regional languages and languages of ethnic minorities