PM: “No Referendum on Serbian Cyrillic Whilst I’m Alive”

An initiative aimed at removing Serbian cyrillic alphabet signs from official buildings in the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar has gathered more than the 450,000 signatures required by law to force a referendum, but Prime Minister Zoran Milanović has rained on their parade after announcing that there will be no referendum about cyrillic whilst he is alive…

“A referendum about cyrillic will not happen while I am alive. There are legal mechanisms and conventions that we have signed on entry into the European Union, which does not allow referendums concerning the rights of national minorities,” said Milanović in Osijek on Monday writes dnevnik.hr.

It is believed that more than 500,000 people signed up for the referendum question asking if they are in favour to change the constitution so bilingual rights in local government and public offices only applies in areas where the minority makes up at least 50%. Around 35% of Vukovar’s population is made up of Serbian nationals according to records, but that number is disputed. Currently the Constitutional Law on the Rights of Ethnic Minorities in Croatia allows for ethnic minorities, where they made up more than a third of a city’s population, to be entitled to have their language used for official purposes.