All eight MPs representing national minorities will jointly negotiate with HDZ about their support for the new government.
All eight MPs who represent national minorities decided on Wednesday to jointly enter into negotiations about forming a new government. Their condition will be for the new ruling majority to accept their programme platform, reports Večernji List on September 14, 2016.
Representative of the Czech national minority Vladimir Bilek (who in last Parliament broke with other national minorities MPs and joined the Milan Bandić Parliamentary Group) said that this time minorities had decided to act together. “This was the first meeting of minority MPs. We have discussed our platform, and we will again meet tomorrow and see what will happen”, said Bilek.
Regarding their conditions for cooperation, he added that these primarily related to rights of national minorities. “We will have a general part of our platform, but also particular sections for each national minority. Since some MPs represent more than one national minority, they have to coordinate their position with all of them”, said Bilek. “I think it is clear who the relative winner of these election is. We will first prepare our platform, and then enter into negotiations”, explained Bilek.
Representative of the Roma national minority Veljko Kajtazi said that the goal of the meeting was for all minorities to act together, and not like in last Parliament when some of minority MPs joined the Milan Bandić Parliamentary Group and supported the outgoing government, while other minority representatives stayed in opposition.
“I firmly believe that this time we will act together”, said Kajtazi, who is a member of HNS, a party which is expected to be in opposition in the next Parliament.
“So far, we have not discussed any positions in government for national minorities”, concluded Bilek.
