Croatian Romani Union “KALI SARA” together with its associates has collected 651 signatures supporting the Minority SafePack Initiative. In this way, the Roma community in the Republic of Croatia has been actively engaged and stands side by side with other associations in order to achieve concrete measures to ensure the survival of linguistic and national minorities.
The adoption of a set of legal acts which would improve the protection of members of national and linguistic minorities and enhance cultural and linguistic diversity in the Union are just some of the goals of FUEN’s Initiative (Federal Union of European Nationalities), which started in April last year. Collection of signatures was completed on April 3 when 1,215,879 signatures were finally collected. Croatia, along with Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Romania, is the country that has reached the threshold of signatures required. Namely, it has collected 17,434 signatures out of 8,250 required.
What after the gathering of signatures?
Ministry of Public Administration, as the competent national body in the Republic of Croatia,
must validate the number of valid statements of support within three months. Also, within three months after the submission of the Initiative, representatives of the European Commission will meet with the organizers in order to explain in detail the issues triggered by the Initiative. Organizers will have the opportunity to present their Initiative at a public hearing in the European Parliament. The Commission will explain in an official response what measures will possibly be proposed in response to the civic initiative and the reasons for its decision. The response in the form of communication will be officially adopted by the College of Commissioners and will be published in all official languages of the EU and if the Commission accepts the Initiative, the legislative process begins.
