Michel Dreneau, the head of the field office in this city some 50 kilometres south of Zagreb, said that it was closely cooperating with representatives of ethnic minorities in this Croatian area. He described the relations between local authorities and minorities' representatives as realistic and consistent partnership.
He said that it was encouraging to see a great number of minorities' representatives in bodies of local authorities and praised the minority policy of new bodies of the regional authorities.
Croatian President Stjepan Mesic's advisor on political issues, Sinisa Tatalovic, said that that "in the normative sense, Croatia has set very high standards for minority rights".
Representatives of minorities agreed that it was necessary to further improve the current relations and intensify contacts and dialogue. They urged the Croatian government to give more precise interpretations of the enforcement of the Constitutional Law on National Minorities so as to avoid ambiguities in interpretation of provisions regarding the representation of minorities in county assemblies.