ZAGREB, July 2 (Hina) - Croatian Foreign Minister Tonino Picula said Wednesday at the international conference on integration of minorities in Southeast Europe and the Baltic that Croatia had assumed responsibility for national
minorities offering them moral and legal right to identification of their own interests, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
ZAGREB, July 2 (Hina) - Croatian Foreign Minister Tonino Picula
said Wednesday at the international conference on integration of
minorities in Southeast Europe and the Baltic that Croatia had
assumed responsibility for national minorities offering them moral
and legal right to identification of their own interests, the
Foreign Ministry said in a statement. #L#
Picula particularly pointed to the significance of the
constitutional law on the rights of national minorities, adopted in
last December, which defined the representation of minorities in
parliament and at the local level through the establishment of the
institution of minority self-government, the statement said.
The Croatian Minister said the government, as the organiser of
minority council elections, drew a lesson and was now considering a
possibility of call additional election during the next
parliamentary or local election, the statement said.
The main speaker at the event, which is divided into four panel
discussions, was a former High Commissioner for Bosnia Carl Bildt.
Also attending were the director of the International Relations
Institute, Mladen Stanicic, the head of the OSCE Mission in
Croatia, Peter Semneby, the chairwoman of the first working table
of the Stability Pact, Elisabeth Rehn.
(hina) it sb