NGOs Demand Dismissal of the Council for Development of Civil Society

14 December 2005

The Civil Society Forum, an informal initiative that gathers about fifteen NGOs, demanded at the conference for the media held yesterday that the Council for Development of Civil Society be dismissed. CDCS is a body consisting of NGO and state administration representatives, charged with supervision, analysis and evaluation of Budget support for programmes and projects implemented by non-governmental legal entities in Croatia.

In view of the lack of willingness on the behalf of the Council to come out in public with a comment on the interview given last month to �Glas Concila� weekly by Jadranka Cigelj, Head of the Government�s Bureau of Associations UZUVRH, two members of the CDCS resigned, while Dusica Radojcic from Zelena Istra announced her resignation.

�I am deeply hurt by the refusal of the members of the Council to comment the statements of Ms. Cigelj that she was �ashamed of some associations� and the �certain associations should be accused of grand treason�, that associations should be followed, as well as her statements regarding the donors, media, gender equality and others.

The statements are intolerant of a major part of the civil society, which is contrary to the office held by Ms. Cigelj. I was forced to announce my resignation in a press conference since the Council doesn�t issue media releases from its sessions. At the last session, the members of the Council agreed that the media will be excluded, which is a violation of a basic principle of civil society � transparency of activities�, said Radojcic in her statement.

The Civil Society Forum believes that such a Council has no reason or legitimacy, and demand its dismissal. It is the highest time to reorganize both the UZUVRH and CDCS and to start the work, in cooperation with the CSOs, on the preparation of a new Civil Society Development Strategy.