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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Prime Minister Kostunica meet delegation of National Council of Hungarian ethnic minority

Belgrade, 13 July 2004

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica met today with a delegation of the National Council of Hungarian ethnic minority headed by Laszlo Josza and director and editor-in-chief of Magyar Szó publishing house Rudolf Mihog and Peter Kokai.

Today’s meeting was also attended by Serbia-Montenegrin Minister of Human and Minority Rights Rasim Ljajic and Serbian Minister of Interior Dragan Jocic. This is the first meeting that Prime Minister Kostunica plans to have with representatives of political parties and cultural and national institutions of Vojvodina Hungarians.

The Serbian Prime Minister expressed his concern following the attacks on members of Hungarian ethnic minority and ethnically motivated incidents. He condemned all ethnically motivated conflicts.

Kostunica pointed out Serbian government’s resolve that Vojvodina should serve as an example of good inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations, reminding of the Law on Minorities whose provisions need to be applied in practice fully.

President of the National Council of Hungarian ethnic minority in Serbia said that there is good will of the government to approach this issue seriously.

Reminding of some 30 ethnically motivated incidents that occurred in the past six months, Josza said that it is necessary to reach solutions jointly and thus prevent the ethnic conflicts.

It was agreed that perpetrators of all incidents must be discovered and punished.

Ljajic said that the media have a significant role in the prevention of ethnically-motivated incidents and he added that Hungary’s parliament will soon ratify an agreement between Serbia-Montenegro and Hungary on the protection of national minorities. The agreement has already been approved by the Serbia-Montenegrin parliament, calling for the setting up of an inter-governmental commission to monitor the implementation of the agreement.

Jocic said that most perpetrators of ethnic incidents have been discovered, particularly when it comes to serious crimes. A small number of them are still unresolved, mostly those related to wall graffiti with ethnic or religious slurs.

Jocic also said that the largest number of incidents were against the Hungarian minority, the second largest number of ethnic incidents were against other ethnic groups, while incidents against Serbs are in the third place by number. Most of the perpetrators, according to Jocic, are young people.

The officials agreed that each incident should be viewed as an individual act and that the two governments should work together on the prevention of such offences and seek to create an environment that would facilitate harmonious inter-ethnic relations.