Vlachs of Serbia - Legal Status

Legal Status

Their ethnonym is Rumâni, while they call their community Rumâni din Sârbie translated to English it means Romanians from Serbia. They are less commonly known as Valahii din Serbia. The Romanians in Serbia call their community Românii din Serbia. Although they are ethnographically and linguistically related to the Romanians, within the Vlach community there are divergences on whether they belong or not to the Romanian nation and whether their minority should be amalgamated with the Romanian minority in Vojvodina.

In a Romanian-Yugoslav agreement from the November 4, 2002, the Yugoslav authorities agreed to recognize the Romanian identity of the Vlach population in Central Serbia, but the agreement wasn't applied. In April 2005, 23 deputies from the Council of Europe, representatives from Hungary, Georgia, Lithuania, Romania, Moldova, Estonia, Armenia, Azerbaïdjan, Denmark and Bulgaria protested against Serbia's treatment of this population.

The Senate of Romania postponed the ratification of Serbia`s membership candidature to the European Union until the legal status and minority right of the Romanian (Vlach) population in Serbia is solved.

Predrag Balašević, the president of the Vlach party of Serbia accused the government of assimilation by using the national Vlach organization against the interests of this minority in Serbia.

Since 2010, the Vlach National Council of Serbia is led by members of leading Serbian Parties (Democrat Party and Socialist Party) and most of them are ethnic Serbs, having no relation to the Vlach/Roumanian minority. Radiša Dragojević, the actual president of Vlach National Council of Serbia, who is not a Vlach, but an ethnic Serb stated that none has the right to ask the Vlach minority in Serbia to identify as Romanian or veto anything, firstly because there already is a recognized Romanian minority within Serbia, and because Vlach people in Serbia do not feel discriminated or underprivileged. He also said that Vlachs feel only Serbia as their true homeland.

As a response to mister Dragojević`s statement cultural organizations Ariadnae Filum, Društvo za kulturu Vlaha - Rumuna Srbije, Društvo Rumuna - Vlaha „Trajan“, Društvo za kulturu, jezik i religiju Vlaha - Rumuna Pomoravlja, Udruženje za tradiciju i kulturu Vlaha „Dunav“, Centar za ruralni razvoj - Vlaška kulturna inicijativa Srbija and the Vlach party of Serbia protested and stated them as false.

On 1 Mart, 2012, Romania and Serbia signed an agreement about the Vlach population in Serbia. According to the agreement, members of the Vlach community can declare them self as Romanians and those who do can have access to education, media and religion in their language.