Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has proven to be credible, proactive and responsible regarding demands of the ethnic Croat community brought to his attention on February 20 after his official visit to Zagreb, leader of the Democratic Alliance of Vojvodina Croats (DSHV) party and MP, Tomislav Zigmanov, told Croatian state-news agency Hina.

Commenting on Vucic’s statement of Thursday that all the demands for the improvement of the status of the Croat minority in Serbia had been met in line with the Subotica Declaration, Zigmanov said that the demands the Serbian president cited had been met owing to “Vucic’s direct engagement.”

The Subotica Declaration on advancing relations and resolving outstanding issues between the two countries was signed in 2016 by Vucic, who was Prime Minister at the time, and Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, after the two met with representatives of the Serb ethnic minority in eastern Slavonia and the Croat minority in Backa, Serbia.

Zigmanov said the demands concerned problems encountered by the Croat minority in the context of exercising their minority rights.

“That primarily refers to the financing of some associations, opening of a Croatian language instruction office at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Studies in Novi Sad, the introduction of new high school educational profiles in the Croatian language, communal facilities and infrastructure…,” said Zigmanov.

“The only outstanding issue is the issue of restitution of the Croat community centre in Sremska Mitrovica to the local Croat community, which Vucic himself has admitted,” Zigmanov told Hina.

At the same time, Zigmanov said that “Croats in Serbia still encounter problems in exercising their rights.”

“We have as a consequence of disagreements and tensions in Croatian-Serbian relations an almost permanent, strong anti-Croat sentiment in a part of the public, which results in fear and unwillingness of Croats to take part in public life,” said Zigmanov.

Zigmanov pointed to the first point of the Subotica Declaration on the promotion of bilateral protection of minorities – the Croat minority in Serbia and the Serb minority in Croatia – in line with an agreement between the two countries “which also explicitly speaks about the representation of minorities in legislative authorities at all levels, and executive authorities at the local level.”

“That still has not been resolved,” he said, mentioning other issues such as the issue of proportional representation in state administration bodies and the right to participation in the administration of educational and cultural institutions and the right to the official use of the language and script.

Zigmanov is the only representative of the Croat minority in the Serbian parliament, elected on the slate of the opposition Democratic Party.

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