At the sitting held on 21 November, the Committee on Interethnic Relations discussed the Draft Culture Bill and elected Committee members into a Special working group for the preparation of the text of the draft bill regulating the general issues of the position of members of national minorities and election of national minorities’ national councils.

The sitting was chaired by the Committee Chairperson, Ana Makanova-Tomanova, and was attended by the State Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Novica Antic and associates and the representatives of the Standing Conference of Cities and Municipalities.

State Secretary Novica Antic briefed the Committee members on the Draft Culture Bill stressing that the Bill enables the alignment with the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia and European standards and, after fifteen years, regulates the field of culture in a modern way. He added that the Bill provides for the foundation of a National Culture Council elected by the National Assembly and comprising members of national minorities’ national councils as well. The National Assembly will also be adopting a plan of cultural development as the basis of Serbia’s cultural policy. The Bill also states that the national councils can found national minorities’ cultural institutions. The Bill regulates the obligatory financing of projects and programmes by public competitions with a special focus on financing national minorities’ projects.

In the course of the debate the Committee members discussed the National Culture Council’s manner of deciding, budgetary allotments for cultural development for the national minorities and the social component of independent artists’ status.

The Committee members concluded that before the next Committee sitting all Deputy Groups forward their comments on the Draft Culture Bill in writing to the Committee so that they can be forwarded to the Ministry of Culture in due course.

The Committee members unanimously elected Members of Parliament Mujo Mukovic and Jaroslav Hrebnik as representatives of the Committee in the Special working group for the preparation of the text of the draft bill regulating the general issues of the position of members of national minorities and election of national minorities’ national councils.