Voters in Slovakia are casting ballots in a referendum on whether to join the European Union
Published:
17 May 2003 y., Saturday
Polling stations are scheduled to close at 2PM local time (1200 UTC) Saturday. Results from the two-day poll are expected on Sunday.
Support for EU membership is high in Slovakia. But less than 30 percent of the country's four-million voters cast ballots on Friday, raising concern that voter turnout may fall below the 50 percent needed for the results to be declared valid.
Such an outcome would be a major embarassment to Slovakia's center-right government, although the country's parliament would still be able to ratify the EU accession agreement.
On Friday, Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda urged all Slovakian voters to take an active part in the referendum. Slovakia signed the EU pact last month along with nine other countries, most of them former Communist states, who have been invited to join next year on May 1, 2004.
Voters in four candidate-countries (Hungary, Lithuania, Malta and Slovenia) already have endorsed membership.
The Czech Republic and Poland are scheduled to hold referendums in June, and Latvia and Estonia will hold similar votes in September. All candidate states except Cyprus are to hold referendums on EU membership.
Šaltinis:
VOA News
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