The Chairman of the Committee on the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region Miodrag Linta opened the meeting by saying that the Committee members are aware of the difficult position of Serbs in Montenegro. Some of the problems are the Serbs’ thwarted efforts to gain the status of ethnicity in Montenegro, prevention of their employment in state institutions as well as the private sector, Serbian being treated as a second class language, attacks against the property of the Serbian Church and limited freedom of movement of church dignitaries and the leader of the Serbian parliamentary party Andrija Mandic.

Dr Momcilo Vuksanovic said that he had sent a letter to the Serbian President yesterday outlining the position of the Serbian people in Montenegro conditioned by changing their national identity. He said that the Serbian language which was according to the latest census the native language of most of the citizens of Montenegro has been renamed and the Cyrillic script which is equal under the Montenegrin Constitution has the status of an allowed but not equal rights script. He also mentioned the rising animosity against the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro. He went on to say that by deliberate amendments to Montenegrin laws the ruling coalition is working against the Serbian people and the country’s slow administration is gradually eliminating the Serbian organizations working on preserving the Serbian national, cultural, linguistic and religious identity, with a special focus on Serbian media.

The attending mentioned the Serbian Government’s support in the form of purchase of the “Serbian House” for which 3 million EUR were allocated in the Serbian budget and which is still not operating as envisaged.

The Committee members said that they will convey the message and concerns of the Conference of Serbs in the Region to the Serbian Government and use the instruments at their disposal to support the Serbian National Council in Montenegro.

The meeting was also attended by Ljubomir Aleksov and Vera Pejic Sutor, representatives of Serbs from Hungary, who said that the Serbian ethnic community has all the rights guaranteed to ethnic minorities. Aleksov said that in the last few years the Serbian community in Hungary had taken big steps forward and has its own cultural, scientific and religious institutions, and the Committee members said that the Serbian community in Hungary can serve as a best practice example and model to be followed by Serbs from the countries in the region.