It was attended by six members of the Council of the Roma national minority and seven members of the Council of the Serbian national minority.

During the workshop professor Lauc reminded the participants which legal regulations pertaining to the selection and work of the councils of national minorities are in force. He stressed the importance of making quality Statute as a general act which governs the rights and obligations of councillors and determines the work of the council. In addition to the Statute, he stressed that the council brings and adopts a work program, financial plan and final account.

All  workshop participants mentioned the problem of absence of contact persons at the county level, who would be involved and help councils in establishing better cooperation with the regional government. During the discussion they highlighted the difficulties they face in their daily work due to limited funds allocated by regional and local governments. Also, the members of councils mentioned the problem of lacking a space for their work and for archiving the official documents.

Professor Lauc advised them to establish coordination of all the councils at the county level with the aim of lobbying for better working conditions and better position of national minorities.

Furthermore, the workshop participants mentioned the problem of prolonged procedure of registration in the register of the council of national minorities by the Ministry of Administration, which is carried out after the elections and constituting of the councils.  

Professor Lauc suggested to them that in that case they should lodge appeal on silence of the administration to the competent Ministry and also that they should send a memo to the Ombudsman for the records.

During the workshop, the provisions of Statutes of present councils that should be amended or supplemented were discussed. Professor Lauc warned  participants of the importance of preservation and archiving council documents in accordance with the Law on Archival Records and the Archives.

The workshop was organized by ILC in collaboration with partners in the project - HILS from Osijek, Brod – Posavina County and the Network of Croatian Roma CSOs through the "Legal inclusion and sustainable integration of Roma in Croatia" project funded by the European Union under the program IPA 2012 and co-financed by the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs.