What a paradox! Concurrently with assuming the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, Croatia is facing a tide of populist and political manifestations that threaten to severely shake the institutions and structure of the legal system of the youngest EU member.
The focus of the Croatian public is on a very likely-to-happen referendum which could bring about changes in the rights of national minorities in Croatia and amendments to the electoral law.
A clericalist civil group called The People Decide called Croatian voters to endorse its referendum initiative and quite smoothly gathered approximately 400,000 signatures, equal to 10 per cent of Croatia’s electorate.
Both of the two referendum proposal issues strike at the very core of modern Croatia.
As far as minorities are concerned, in the event of a ‘yes’ vote in the proposed referendum, MPs from minority groups would be denied rights such as the right to vote on the formation of the Croatian government or on the budget, whereas the amended electoral law would result in fewer MPs, particularly those representing national minorities.
Taken together, such changes would undermine the country’s constitutional foundations and be in contravention of a number of obligations Croatia undertook in the process of getting its international recognition, as well as in its EU accession documents.
Briefly, it would deprive national minorities in Croatia of their vested rights with hardly imaginable consequences at home and internationally.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic is obviously aware of that, as he has announced that he will employ every political and legal instrument to quash the initiative.
However, the president of Croatia has not clearly expressed her opinion on the referendum. In contrast to the prime minister, President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic has maintained her populist practice of pleasing the extreme right, and has stressed the need to respect the ‘popular will’.
As was expected, the initiative has been strongly condemned by members of Serb community in Croatia, who have claimed that Serbs were exploited as a motivational element in the signature collection initiative for the referendum.
The responses from other minorities have been no milder. The reaction of Rome, vigilant on the position of Italians in Croatia, could be particularly delicate for Zagreb officials.
Serbia’s interest in this case is both legitimate and legal, as national minorities are an issue addressed by an inter-state agreement with Croatia.
A yes vote in the referendum would be in breach of the agreement, whose implementation is already slow and challenging.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
