ZAGREB, CROATIA – The Slovenian Party of the People (SSN) has invested more efforts into preventing Croatia from joining NATO. Although small, marginal and non-parliamentary party, it is very persistent. When it became clear that they would not be able to collect 40,000 signatures from its citizens to carry out a referendum on Croatia joining NATO, the party’s leadership decided to request of the Slovenian Constitutional Court to initiate proceedings that would review the law on referemdum procedure. 

If the SSN request is accepted, Slovenia would not be able to send Croatia’s membership ratification

I don’t know why Croatia is rushing into NATO. Being in NATO is very expensive, NATO takes two percent of the GDP, which in effect means buying American weapons.

Zmago Jelincic

- After receiving the motion, the Constitutional Court has six days to decide on the SNN motion and even more time would pass until further amendments to the law – a former president of the party, Zdenko Vinkov Vincenc, told us.

- Of course, when it comes to the Constitution, if there is a problem, then the process of reviewing the law is set in motion. The constitution has various restrictions regarding collecting signatures for a referendum, such as bans on signatures at a certain time at certain locations, as well as certain days of the week. The Constitutional Court has to assess whether the SSN motion has any sense – the president of the Zavod 25. junij party, which was the original instigator of the referendum on Croatia joining NATO, told us.

- Based on everything that happened and considering that the Constitutional Court has already dismissed a similar request, the SSN motion will most probably have no effect – Podobnik said.

Zmago Jelincic, although not acquainted with the motion sent to the Constitutional Court, does not know why Croatia wants to join NATO.

The president of the SSN, Lovro Skrinjaric, did not answer his telephone when we tried to contact him.