Prime Minister Plenković met in Trieste with representatives of the Croatian national minority.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic met on Thursday with the leader of the Croatian community in Trieste in Italy Damir Murković. After the meeting, he said that the issue of the official recognition of the Croatian language in the Friuli region would be discussed between Croatia and Italy, reports Večernji List on 14 July 2017.
“Italians are a national minority that enjoys all the rights in Croatia. I express my satisfaction that the representative of the Italian national minority, Furio Radin, as a member of the Croatian Parliament, has been elected Deputy Speaker of Parliament, which is an important political signal that Croatia, as a mature European country, is developing its policy towards minorities. We expect that, in the wider context of talks with Italy, we will make additional efforts to protect the rights of Croats living in Italy,” said Croatian Prime Minister Plenkovic.
While acknowledging that the president of the Federation of Croatian Associations in Italy Damir Murković has been caring for 15,000 Croats living in the Friuli region for many years, Prime Minister Plenković emphasized that they “are engaged and care about their cultural rights and the position of the Croatian language, and try to continue the legacy of those Croats who are indigenous to this part of Italy, as well as those who came here over the past twenty years.”
Murković said that the Croatian community had begun to debate the issue of the recognition of the Croatian as the fifth official minority language in the region because he believes that they have the legal right to do so.
“This is a procedure that is now proceeding at a political level. Once accepted, it can be resolved in a very short time. I hope this will be the case, just like with the implementation of the agreement on cultural cooperation between Croatia and Italy, which was signed between Croatian and Italian Culture Ministers in 2015 but was mostly the result of the efforts undertaken by Croats living in Italy”, said Murković.
In addition to Prime Minister Plenković, the meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Marija Pejčinović Burić.
