The Assembly will be discussing the situation in Syria, protection of human rights defenders, new restrictions on NGO activities, migrations and empowering of women in the economy. The PACE also elected a new President Liliane Maury Pasquier of Switzerland. Among others the Assembly will be addressed by Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini and the Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Luxembourg Jean Asselborn.

In her address yesterday, Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs and CoE Committee of Ministers co-chair Marija Pejcinovic Buric spoke about protecting national minority rights as one of the priorities of Croatia’s chairmanship. In view of that, the members of the Serbian delegation asked about the rights of the Serbian national minority in Croatia – proportional employment of Serbs and other national minorities in the public sector and the use of the Serbian language and Cyrillic script as guaranteed by the 2002 Law on the Rights of National Minorities, the open issue of the 1990s conflicts, return of property and property rights in line with the Vienna Agreement, and asked for an assessment of the cooperation with the Republic of Serbia regarding the status of the Croat national minority in Serbia.

The National Assembly delegation is headed by Dr Aleksandra Tomic andcomprises Marija Obradovic, Elvira Kovacs, Biljana Pantic Pilja, Dubravka Filipovski, Prof. Dr Zarko Obradovic, Aleksandar Stevanovic and Aleksandar Seselj.