In Serbia, tomorrow, Saturday, the census of the population, households and apartments will begin, and it will last until the end of October. About 15.000 selected enumerators will go "door to door" with the interview method through electronic enumeration - with laptops, which will greatly speed up the procedure, because the operations that follow the enumeration are skipped.

Citizens will answer 69 questions, two of which are non-binding - those about nationality and religion, and those who refuse to take part in the census will be fined, the director of the Statistics Office, Miladin Kovacevic, said today.

"The census is carried out in order to obtain precise data on the ethnic, economic, educational, migration and other characteristics of the population, which are necessary for obtaining a reliable picture of the current situation, for projections of future movements, and especially for the realistic assessment of the consequences from moving abroad in the last 11 years, said Kovacevic.

Nationality and religion are the only two of the sixty-nine questions on the upcoming census that residents do not have to answer. However, minority politicians consider it very important to answer these questions, especially about nationality.

- In Serbia, no one can have negative consequences from this, but on the other hand, it is very significant because certain rights are tied to the percentage of members of a certain national community in a certain locality, believes the president of the Association of Voivodeship Hungarians, István Pastor.

The Croatian National Council in Serbia (HNV) started the implementation of the census with a series of activities, said Tomislav Žigmanov, and one part of these activities related to the "I know who I am!" campaign, which aims to raise citizens' awareness of the importance from expressing one's identity.

- Specifically, this means that with this campaign we want to encourage citizens of Croatian nationality in Serbia to clearly state during the census that they are Croats by nationality, that their language is Croatian and that their religion (if they are believers) is Roman Catholic without fear and with healthy pride, said Zhigmanov.

As reported by the MIA correspondent from Belgrade, according to the last census of 2011, in Serbia, unlike previous years, the number of Macedonians is decreasing, or 22.755 people declared themselves as belonging to the Macedonian nationality, which is about 0,32 percent of the total number of residents in Serbia.

According to unofficial estimates, over 100.000 Macedonians live in Serbia, and a large number have settled in the last 11 years, so the results of the census will be significant, to see if the trend of the numerical decline of Macedonians declaring their nationality will continue. .

Pursuant to the Law on Census of Population, Households and Apartments, citizens of the Republic of Serbia living in Serbia, as well as foreigners with permanent residence and residence in Serbia are obliged to participate in the census and to give correct and complete answers to all questions. Any refusal, as well as providing incomplete and incorrect information, entails criminal liability and a fine of 20.000 to 50.000 dinars.

The first preliminary data from the census will be published by the end of November.