The workshop was led by prof. Zvonimir Lauc. Seven members of the Council of the Serbian national minority and five members of the Council of the Roma national minority from Brod – Posavina County participated at the workshop. The topic of the first introductory workshop was "Social development – the regional and local government – functioning and difficulties in practice".

During a two hour lecture, prof. Lauc explained in detail the functioning of government in Croatia – (separation of powers), laws in force that concern the functioning of regional and local government and what are the difficulties in applying legal norms in practice. In his lecture, he mentioned the importance of regional and local government stating that strong government is important for efficient functioning of the community and that the system should be built up from bellow. He also stated that the European average allocations of the state budget to regional and local self-governance is 20-30%, while in Croatia this is only 11%, provided that 5% goes to the City of Zagreb while 6% is allocated to other regional and local self-government in the territory of the Republic of Croatia. He pointed out that one cannot talk about quality and efficient functioning of regional and local government if there is not enough financial funds. Present members of the Council expressed their satisfaction with the lecture, as well as the need to maintain educations about the importance and methods of work of the Council of National Minorities.

Workshop for Minority Councils of Brod-Posavina County was organized as part of the IPA 2012 "Legal inclusion and sustainable integration of Roma in Croatia" project implemented by the IPC in partnership with the association HILS from Osijek, Brod – Posavina County and the Network of Roma NGOs in Croatia.

It was organised within the project "Legal inclusion and sustainable integration of Roma in Croatia", which is financed by the European Union from the program IPA 2012 "Strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations to ensure the effective implementation of EU standards in the realization of human rights" and co-financed by the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs.