Bujanovac – A round table at which representatives of the local ethnic Albanian and Roma communities discussed the amendments to the Law on National Minority Councils in Serbia was yesterday held at the Bujanovac-based “Vuk Karadzic” community center.

The consultative meeting was organized as part of the public consultation, which started at the end of last month in Novi Sad, and which was organized by the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, with the support of the OSCE Mission to Serbia.

The draft text of the amendments to the Law on National Minority Councils envisages that a member of the National Minority Council may not be a member of a political party or an official, an appointed person or director in the state and provincial administration or in the local self-government, who within their mandate, decide on the issues of the operation of National Minority Councils.  

“It was underscored at the meeting that the aforementioned changes had been proposed in order to prevent excessive politicization of these "institutional forms of exercising the collective rights of national minorities to self-government in the areas of culture, education, information and the official use of the language and script, to whom specific public powers to participate in decision-making or to decide by themselves on specific issues in that sphere are entrusted by law.”

According to Professor Vladimir Djuric, the roundtable discussion in Bujanovac was very constructive. He said that there was still enough time for making the law "tailored to national minorities."

Apart from Ivana Antic, the Assistant Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, and Ivan Bosnjak, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, the meeting was, among others, attended by Giacomo Bosisio, the Head of the OSCE Mission’s Office in Bujanovac and Rahim Salihi, the Chief of Staff of the Office of the Mayor of Bujanovac.

Source: Bujanovac News and Coordination Body