Not quite the EU-Renamed Constitution news but it has to do with referendum legislation and procedures regarding calls for a referendum in Europe.

In Croatia broad alliance of NGOs has 15 days to collect signatures from 10% of the electorate “on the street”. Legalistic twist this time will revolve around “ID numbers of the citizens” (matični broj građana). Namely these numbers have been used in the past regularly but have been removed from the personal documents after new legislation on private data security has been passed. Therefore many citizens forget to bring along their ID basic numbers but the referendum legislation still demands them.

Slogan of this call for a referendum is: DECISION TO THE PEOPLE - NATO TO THE REFERENDUM!

How will the presence of Mr. Bush on his Friday and Saturday visit to Zagreb effect the collection is yet unknown. What is known is that the capitol of Croatia will be swarming with snipers, people have already been instructed not to approach the windows in the critical days and many will simply leave the city to avoid all the fuss around the Herald of Democracy.

Media and politicians claim that the support to the Croatian NATO membership is around 70% but who can tell, really. Even in Poland politicians have been bragging with similar numbers regarding Polish attitude towards Lisbon Treaty yet still they don’t want to risk an open and fair referendum trial.