Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday that Serbian textbooks' denial of the Croatian language was 'outrageous and unacceptable.'

“The embassy, the foreign ministry and all the relevant institutions have a clear duty to send protest notes to Serbia,” Plenkovic told the press after he met junior partners in the ruling coalition in Zagreb.

“We consider it a shameful policy,” he added.

On Monday, the political leadership of Croats in Serbia condemned the denial of the Croatian language in grammar books for eighth-graders. According to the local Croat-language weekly “Hrvatska rijec”, a grammar book for eighth-graders by a group of authors says that the Serbian, Slovenian, Macedonian and Bulgarian languages are South Slavic languages while “Croats, Bosniaks and some Montenegrins call the Serbian language Croatian, Bosnian, Bosniak or Montenegrin.” The textbook was approved by the Serbian Institute for the Promotion of Education, the weekly said.

Plenkovic said today that Croatia expected Serbia to rectify such anomalies in its grammar books.

He added that he would also convey Croatia’s position on the matter to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic who is expected to attend a two-day EU-Western Balkans summit, which begins on Tuesday afternoon in Slovenia.