The Croatian National Council (HNV) in Serbia will not support the proposed minority action plan for the period 2022-2025 because it does not address the needs of minorities in Serbia, which is an important step on the country's EU accession path, HNV president Jasna Vojnic said on Tuesday.

The Serbian Ministry of Human and Minority Rights recently released a draft of the Minority Action Plan for public debate. Serbia is required to adopt and apply the action plan within the framework of policy chapter No. 23 in its EU accession process.

“Instead of the real needs of national minorities, in most areas, the plan envisages activities related mainly to analyses, initiatives or awareness-raising campaigns, without clearly defined actions, and the plan will not result in the improvement of national minorities’ rights,” Vojnic said.

The absence of key demands by national minorities in the proposed action plan is not the only shortcoming, added Vojnic. A lot of work has to be done for the plan to be at the level of a European document, she noted.

The HNV listed some of the key needs of the Croatian minority, such as the verification of census data, an analysis of the situation regarding discrimination, the adoption of a resolution on crimes against minority peoples in Serbia in the 1990s, an increase in the content provided by public services in minority languages, the introduction of the institute of guaranteed seats for minorities in representative bodies and the like.

According to Vojnic, since December 2021, the HNV actively participated in the task force working on action plan, but almost none of its suggestions were adopted.

“Although at the very beginning the draft version of the document was encouraging, state institutions once again opted for a unilateral approach to drafting the document, and minority proposals remained on the margins once again,” said Vojnic.

Vojnic believes that EU representatives will “carefully consider” the remarks and suggestions by the leadership of the Croatian minority in Serbia.

Serbia’s Minister for Human and Minority Rights Gordana Comic previously told Belgrade media that “definition and protection of minority rights is a never-ending process.”

The action plan will only assess how much the status of ethnic minorities in Serbia as a whole has improved, Comic said, underscoring that minorities must be involved in talks on their status. “No one can decide what is good for minorities, except the minorities themselves,” she said as carried by the Danas daily.