Independent Democratic Serbian Party (SDSS) Milorad Pupovac has said that it is less important how he will cooperate with the newly elected Croatian president than what cooperation will look like between Zoran Milanovic and the current government.

That is of great importance and need for Croatia, said Pupovac on Monday, expressing hope that he shares the feeling of the majority of Croatian citizens considering the messages sent by the president-elect Milanovic and incumbent president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic upon the completion of the presidential runoff on Sunday evening when they called for dialogue and understanding.

That means, the ethnic Serb leader believes, that the society should live in an atmosphere of dialogue and understanding “because we’ve spent too much energy on conflicts, arguments and they have not brought anything good.”

The SDSS chief expects Croatia to achieve that sort of political culture, that type of political responsibility, to share political responsibility between the government and president.

Pupovac recalled that the status of Serbs in Croatia was described by the Serb National Council (SNV) president Boris Milosevic when he spoke about some unfortunate events for the Serb community in Croatia in 2019.

Despite all those experiences and those before that, I am not losing hope nor faith that with different actors, the office-holders, colleagues and partners, we can change the atmosphere and free the society of intolerance and create that sort of feeling that we have today, we who have gathered here to celebrate Orthodox Christmas Eve, said Pupovac after the event organised by the SNV to mark the Christmas Eve according to the Julian calendar in Zagreb.

Asked by the press whether the president-elect should have been at that event also Pupovac answered that Milanovic would have an opportunity to do so.

Pupovac went on to say that that the most important thing for Milanovic is that he prepares himself for taking over the responsibility of the presidency and to start developing his message into his political agenda for his term in office.

Pupovac also said that he would meet with the president-elect when there was an opportune moment for their meeting.

He believes that the president is a co-creator of policies and a political culture that we have not had since Croatia joined the European Union and that is a policy dedicated to common goals, which means freeing oneself of the bad and being dedicated to the good cause

It is important for us, he underscores, that the Croatia-Serbia relations are no longer burdened by bad policies from the past.

All of us who are at the helm of the Serb community will do our best to open the channels and bridges so as to prioritise the communication and the relations between Croatia and Serbia, between the Serbs and Croats, said Pupovac.