I Will Talk to Vincenc, No Referendum to be Held

The SSN party announced they will insist on a referendum, after it was agreed otherwise. Podobnik does not agree with SSN’s decision.

The Slovenian National Assembly voted yesterday to accept an amendment to protect Slovenian interests in the ratification of the agreement on Croatia’s accession into NATO. The requests by the parliamentarian Zmago Jelincic for a referendum, as well as the same request by Marjan Podobnik who is the president of the “Zavod 25. junij” (25^th June) organization, were refused. Podobnik’s conditions were fulfilled, and he will not use his 2,500 signatures to start a referendum.

However, Zdenko Vinkov-Vincenc, the president of the SSN (Party of the Slovenian People), announced that they will continue with the procedure for starting a referendum, because they are not content with the decisions made in the National Assembly, even though he and Podobnik both bound themselves to stop their activities.

However, Podobnik is optimistic, and believes that Vinkov-Vincenc was a bit to sudden with his decision.

“I think that we are going in a positive direction. Vincenc has realised that what is happening now has no sense. We all had the same stance, and what was sought does not contain what SSN is now seeking” said Podobnik.

Even though SSN in a non-parliamentary party, they do not need representation in parliament for a referendum, and only need to collect 2,500 signatures, which can be done by anybody.

However as Podobnik said yesterday, if SSN start a referendum it would mean breaking an agreement. He said that he will meet with Vincenc today.

“I will talk to Vincenc to give up, and I am 90 percent sure that there will be no referendum” concluded Podobnik.