The Democratic Union of Croats (DZH) party on Friday called for dealing with the issue of so-called Bunjevci language in Subotica and the denial of the Croatian language in Serbian textbooks through open and depoliticized dialogue with the Serbian state and with Croatia's support.

“The DZH does not see any benefit from the political approach which addresses such issues and topics – just to mention the so-called Bunjevci language or unacceptable assessments about the origin of the Croatian language in textbooks – exclusively through the media, declining direct and timely dialogue with the competent institutions and departments,” this non-parliamentary party of Serbian Croats said in a statement.

The party goes on to say that it does not believe that “the policy of never-ending media lamenting can help resolve these issues and ultimately strengthen the competence of our community for dialogue that would be conducted openly and on an equal footing.”

It adds that it cannot accept the political approach which on the one hand openly and frequently harshly criticisms Serbia’s policies and on the other expects positive changes in the attitude towards the ethnic Croat community.

Leaders of the Croat minority in Serbia said recently that textbooks for eighth-graders negated the existence of the Croatian language, to which both Croatia’s prime minister and president reacted, demanding that the textbook be withdrawn.

The issue was brought into the limelight by the Croat National Council (HNV) and the Democratic Alliance of the Vojvodina Croats (DSHV), the only Croat parliamentary party in Serbia, which also protested vocally earlier this year, when the authorities of Subotica, a city in the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, declared the Bunjevci dialect one of the four official languages in the city, along with Serbian, Croatian and Hungarian.

The demand for declaring its speech an official language in Subotica was made by the Bunjevci community, which denies its belonging to the Croatian people.

The decision of the Subotica city authorities was condemned by Croatia’s top officials and linguistic authorities.

The DZH was established in May 2021 and its president is Subotica businessman Marinko Prcic. It has often criticised the policy of the current HNV and DSHV leadership, and a significant portion of the DZH leadership are former DSHV members and officials.