ITALIAN UNION, IDS ON CROATIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT'S DECISION

PULA, Feb 6 (Hina) - A delegation of the Italian Union, led by the chairman of the Union's assembly, Giuseppe Rota, and by the head of the Union's executive committee, Maurizio Tremul, and a delegation of the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS) party, headed by the IDS leader Ivan Jakovcic, today held a session to analyze the situation following the Croatian Constitutional Court's decision to quash parts of the preamble and 19 provisions of Istria County Statute. The Italian Union and the IDS party issued a joint statement after today's session. The statement dealt with "the negative effect" to be caused by the nullification of parts of the permeable and the 19 provisions of the Istria County Statute. It read that such negative effects would "directly influence future position of the Italian national community". The Italian Union would be resolute in preventing a decrease in the reached degree of the protection Italian national community, particularly in the field of bilingualism and the right to consensus in the work of relevant organizations and bodies charged with resolving the issue of fulfilling the national rights, according to the statement. In this direction the Italian Union was to undertake several initiatives at a State levels as well as at international organizations in order to "neutralize destructive effects" of the Croatian Constitutional Court's decision. The IDS said it would not let the achieved level of rights in all municipal, towns' and Counties' bodies of Istrian County, fall lower. The IDS confirmed its resolve to prevent, along with the Italian Union, violations of the values of citizens' toleration, read the statement, signed by Rota, Tremul and Jakovcic. The Croatian Constitutional Court last Thursday unanimously declared null and void parts of the preamble and 19 provisions of the Istria County Statute, because it found unconstitutional, inter alia, the part of the preamble invoking a tripartite Croatian- Slovenian-Italian Memorandum on the Protection of the Italian Minority in Slovenia and Croatia, and a Croatian Parliament Decision on accepting the principles of the European Charter on Local Self-Government, as the legal basis of the Statute. "If the provisions in question were not quashed, an constitutional asymmetry between counties would arise," Judge Nikola Filipovic said in court. (hina) mms 061206 MET feb 95