textbooks in Croatian at all education levels as the best means of fulfilling its educational and cultural requirements to join the European Union. He added that this would also be the best way of overturning Croatia's recently imposed blockade on Chapter 26 (Education and Culture) in Serbia's EU entry talks. Shortly thereafter, he welcomed both Serbia's decision to print Croatian textbooks at the primary school level and Croatia's overturning of the block. Vesna Prćić, the sole DSHV representative in the Assembly of Vojvodina, said in early 2017 that she believed the party should support Progressive Party leader and incumbent Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vučić in the 2017 Serbian presidential election. Žigmanov indicated his surprise at this statement and said he was certain the party would not follow Prćić's recommendation. The party ultimately decided against supporting any candidate. Notwithstanding this, the party has had a complicated relationship with Vučić and his administration. It congratulated him on his victory in the presidential election and welcomed Croatian president Grabar-Kitarović's decision to attend his inauguration as marking a step toward the normalization of relations between the countries. Žigmanov also welcomed Vučić's state visit to Croatia in February 2018 and was included in the president's delegation. Shortly thereafter, he took part in formal discussions between Vučić and members of Serbia's Croat community, which he later said resulted in an agreement to increase the number of Croatian sections in Subotica's secondary schools. In late 2017, Žigmanov drew attention to an incident in which three ethnic Croats in Sonta had been attacked as they were leaving a café. He described the incident as an ethnically motivated hate crime. The Vojvodinian police disagreed with this assessment, saying that they had interviewed several witnesses and did not find elements that the fight was motivated by ethnicity. President Vučić subsequently endorsed the police's conclusions, while Croatia called for further investigations. Žigmanov accused the Serbian state of denying that Croats could be targeted for violence. Žigmanov opposed a bill to reform Serbia's national minority councils in June 2018, saying that it would reduce their autonomy. He particularly opposed a section of the bill that would prevent leaders of national minority parties in Serbia from holding leadership positions on the councils. He is currently a member of the assembly committee on labour, social issues, social inclusion, and poverty reduction; a deputy member of the committee on human and minority rights and gender