ZAGREB, 13 July 2022 - The Croatian government has recommended that parliament adopt the proposal by 92 lawmakers to amend the provisions of the constitution concerning referenda.

The amended constitution and the adoption of the new Referendum Act, which is also in the pipeline, will fully regulate this area of law, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.

The proposed amendments will facilitate the launch of referendum initiatives by voters while at the same time ensuring the legitimacy of decision making, it added.

The government in particular supported the proposal to reduce the necessary number of voters petitioning for a nationwide referendum from the present 10 per cent of the total electorate, or 360,000 voters, to 250,000 voters.

"The reduction of the number of signatures required for calling a referendum will substantially facilitate the use of a referendum as an instrument of direct democracy," the government said.

It also supported the proposal to ensure the legitimacy of decision making by introducing a decision making quorum, saying that the proposed quorums were appropriate to different cases.

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ZAGREB, 3 Jan 2022 - The organizing committees for two referendum petitions initiated by the Bridge party cost a total of HRK 428,300 (€57,106), the organizers revealed on Monday.

The cost of the collection of signatures for the referendum petitions was capped at HRK 8 million each.

From 4 to 18 December, the Bridge party collected signatures at over 1,200 venues across Croatia for the two referendum petitions: one for the transfer of the powers of the national COVID-19 crisis management team to the parliament, where all decisions concerning COVID crisis management should be approved by a two-thirds majority, and the other one for the abolition of COVID passes.

The referendum activities lasted from 2 December to 2 January, the organizers said on Monday.

The costs include the lease of venues, banking services, transport, advertisement, printing services, etc.

The costs incurred for the initiative to have COVID certificates revoked stand at HRK 203,700.

The organizers said they had raised 205,000 in donations for the initiative to rescind COVID certificates. The bulk of that amount, or HRK 170,000, was provided by the Bridge party, whereas citizens Ivan Pehar and Željko Ilijašević donated HRK 30,000 and HRK 5,000 respectively.

According to the organizers, HRK 224,600 was spent on the initiative for the transfer of the powers of the national COVID-19 crisis management team to the parliament.

The donations for this purpose came to HRK 218,800, with Bridge itself donating HRK 180,000. Furthermore, individuals donated amounts ranging from HRK 50 to HRK 30,000, the maximum amount that can be donated by an individual in a referendum initiative.

When this opposition party started collecting signatures, the Justice and Public Administration Ministry established that the minimum required number should be 368,446 valid signatures, that is 10% of the country's electorate.

Bridge leader Božo Petrov told a news conference on 23 December that the party had collected about 400,000 signatures and that the boxes with the signatures would be delivered to the national parliament on 24 January.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)

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ZAGREB, 20 Dec 2021 - Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković on Monday commented on claims about stolen referendums, saying that it is not good to create an atmosphere in which someone is accused of theft in advance.

"I wouldn't like the creation of an atmosphere in an attempt to impose the picture that someone has stolen signatures," he said on Croatian Radio.

"The organizers should show how many signatures they collected. It's important that this time the public is included in the process as well as possible in order to eliminate any doubts as to whether there are enough signatures or not," he said about the opposition Bridge party's collection of signatures for a referendum against COVID certificates.

Jandroković said that if Bridge had collected enough signatures as it claimed, he expected them to ask him to receive them so that they could hand him the request to call the referendum as well as the signatures.

Jandroković said he would send the request to the parliamentary committee on the constitution, which would debate it and then ask the government to check if enough signatures had been collected and then notify parliament.

If there are enough signatures, the committee adopts a conclusion either to call the referendum or to ask the Constitutional Court to say if the referendum question is in line with the constitution.

Jandroković said the important thing now was for Bridge to say how many signatures they have. "Creating an atmosphere in which they wish to say in advance, 'Yes, we have enough signatures but someone will steal them,' is not good. I'd call on everyone to be reasonable and for everything to be done as envisaged by the constitution and the law in a tolerant atmosphere."

Asked if parliament could meet Bridge's demand to include pandemics in Article 17 of the constitution, he said that it could but that it was too early to talk about it.

Asked to comment on President Zoran Milanović's claim that the authorities would probably try to rob Bridge of some signatures, Jandroković said it did not deserve a serious comment and that there was no evidence to back such a claim.

He would not comment on the president's statements about Bosnia and Herzegovina but did say that it was everyone's task to help the Croats in BiH.

Jandroković also said he expected the Constitutional Court to approve the COVID certificate mandate in healthcare and social welfare.

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