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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Elections for national minority councils on 6 June

Belgrade, 11 March 2010

Minister for Human and Minority Rights Svetozar Ciplic stated today that elections for national councils of 19 national minorities will be held on 6 June in all 167 municipalities of Serbia.

Ciplic said at a press conference that the elections will be direct and through electoral assemblies. According to the 2002 census, more than one million citizens in Serbia declare themselves as members of a national minority, which is 14% of the entire population.

The Minister said that the Constitution guarantees individual and collective rights to members of national minorities, but these will be realised more easily though national councils and with the help of the state.

The 2002 Law on prevention of freedoms and rights of national minorities does not prescribe the bottom limit for establishing a national minority. Therefore, national minorities totalling several thousand members and those totalling several hundred have the same rights.

Ciplic said that the elections will be organised in more than nine languages, the same as in local and republic elections. The electoral boards will be formed in places with at least 200 and at the most 2,000 registered voters.

The right to direct elections will be granted to members of 16 national minorities, namely Albanian, Ashkali, Bosniak, Bunjevci, Bulgarians, Vlachs, Greeks, Egyptians, Hungarians, Germans, Roma, Romanians, Ruthenians, Slovaks, Ukrainians and Czechs, the Minister explained.

He added that the Macedonian, Slovenian and Croatian national minorities will choose their councils at electoral assemblies.

The Yugoslavs and the Montenegrins will not choose their national councils because they failed to meet statutory requirements to go to the polls, he said.

The Minister said that the following minorities did not achieve the right to the councils: Gorani, Muslims, Russians, Turks, Sokci and Aromanians.

However, they will be able to qualify for councils again in four years’ time, Ciplic stated.

Head of the OSCE Mission in Serbia Dimitrios Kypreos stressed that the councils should not be understood to be NGOs because they are institutions of national minorities.

He stressed that Serbia in this area has laws that are among the most advanced in Europe, and added that they will, if applied properly, contribute to solving issues of the same kind elsewhere in the region.