Second session of Intergovernmental Mixed Committee for Minorities between Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro

Assistant Foreign and European Integration Minister at the Directorate for Croatian Minorities, Emigration and Immigration Slavko Leban met on Wednesday, 22 February 2006, in Zagreb, on the occasion of the 2nd session of the Intergovernmental Mixed Committee for Minorities (MCM), with Assistant Minister for Human and Minority Rights of Serbia and Montenegro Jelena Marković

Assistant Minister Leban stressed the need for a quick and efficient solving of the national minorities’ issues in Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro, pointing out that the political climate is right for the solving of the topical issue of the Croatian national minority’s representation at the local and state level in Serbia and Montenegro, and the readiness of the Serbian and Montenegrin side to solve that issue.

Assistant Jelena Marković announced the holding of MCM sessions in areas with a greater presence of national minorities.

In its 2nd session, the MCM discussed the issues of informing in the language of the national minorities, participation of the representatives of the national minorities in representative and other bodies of local and state authority, schooling, and financing of the national minorities’ institutions. It also adopted the Rule Book on the Committee’s activities that will contribute to its more successful functioning. The Committee’s recommendations on solving the said issues will be reviewed by the governments of both countries.

The MCM was set up pursuant to the Agreement between Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro on the protection of Croatian minority’s rights in Serbia and Montenegro and the Serbian and Montenegrin minority’s rights in Croatia, signed 15 November 2004. The 1st constitutive session of the MCM was held in Belgrade, 22 November 2005.