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
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
Preparations for the traditional Mexican Day of the Dead get underway in Mexico City as residents erect alters and bake bread for the deceased.
more »
In three resolutions adopted in Strasbourg on Thursday, the European Parliament restates its solidarity with O. Orlov, a member of the Russian human rights organization Memorial and winner of the 2009 EP Sakharov Prize, who is now facing trial, denounces the imprisonment of Cambodian opposition leader S. Rainsy and calls on Zimbabwe's President R. Mugabe to put an end to the threat of mass forced evictions.
more »
Marrying diligent driver behaviour, quality road infrastructure and sound vehicles for safer roads across Europe.
more »
A group of journalism students in Moscow pose semi-naked for a steamy calendar wishing Russia's prime minister a happy birthday.
more »
In the EU27 in 2008, 20% of women and 32% of men aged 25 to 34 lived with at least one of their parents.
more »
“Vertical” health funds targeting specific diseases such as AIDS, malaria or TB have achieved some success, but only at the cost of draining resources from basic “horizontal” health infrastructure such as clinics.
more »
This autumn, the 2010 European Job Days give jobseekers a chance to meet employers from all over Europe, and find out about working in other EU countries through seminars and workshops.
more »
During his visit to New York, on 27 September at the City University of New York, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Ažubalis, opened a photography exhibition dedicated to the Lithuanian Jewish cultural heritage and conferred an award of Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on former Executive Director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
more »
The 26th of September marks the European Day of Languages. Perhaps the Knights of the Order of St John in the Middle Ages prided themselves about the fact that they had eight “langues” but Parliament does better with its daily “Headlines” on its website in 22 languages.
more »
A proposed new plan focuses on closing the pay gap and opening up company boardrooms to more women. Tackling domestic violence is also a top priority.
more »