Poll Watch: Bratislava boogies towards the EU

Date: 24/04/03

By David Cronin

Slovakia's youth are being urged to dance their way into the EU, with a series of concerts and discos due to be organised as part of the 'Vote Yes' campaign before the country's referendum next month on EU membership.

These will form part of a recently launched government-sponsored promotional blizzard, involving 400 billboard advertisements, free telephone helplines and gigabytes of online advocacy ahead of the vote on 16-17 May.

However, the efforts have not exactly had them dancing in the aisles at the Slovak Spectator newspaper. A report on 23 April accused Mikulas Dzurinda's government of being slow to get the campaign going: "The Czech Republic, which has its referendum a month after Slovakia's, has had campaign billboards up for several weeks," it complains.

Günter Verheugen, the EU's enlargement commissioner, yesterday beseeched Poles to vote Yes on 7-8 June. "The referendum will focus the eyes of Europe and perhaps the eyes of the world on Poland," he said during a visit to Warsaw. "Please, do not think only about yourselves, but about the future of your children and those yet to be born."

Marek Borowski, the speaker in Poland's lower house of parliament or Sejm, has recommended that Leszek Miller's government should stay in office until the EU entry referendum is over, despite being rocked by defections and a bribery case.

Speaking after a new economic analysis predicted it could take four decades before Poland's rate of economic growth reaches average EU levels, Borowski remarked: "There are two possibilities - to vote for or against. A 'yes' vote will not bring happiness immediately but there will be chances for improvement. If we vote against, we will be left alone with the same problems and without any aid from the outside."

Latvia's Foreign Minister Sandra Kalniete has argued that a positive result in its EU referendum (20 September) is vital if the country is to bury the ghosts of its Soviet past. "Why are we joining the EU?" she commented in an interview with Riga-based paper Latvijas Vestnesis. "We are joining because of the EU's values, not because we are running away from anything. Yes, we want to get away from out past but if we vote against the EU, then the shadow of our past will lay over us for a very long time."

In neighbouring Lithuania (polling days: 10-11 May), the daily Kauno Diena questions whether the country is ready to assume the responsibilities of becoming an EU member state.

"Negotiators and politicians all say that we have managed to obtain everything that was possible in the course of the talks [on the terms of EU entry]," the editorial states. "In 2004-06, each Lithuanian citizen will have to pay a relative sum of 508 litas (€147) to the EU budget and will receive support, worth 1,855 litas (€537)."

"The balance seems favourable.

"However, will we be able to use the support? Will we be able to quickly select and send to Brussels 400 qualified people - politicians, diplomats, interpreters, who could properly represent the interests of our state? Will the majority of our current members of parliament, whose term in office is about to end, not rush to EU institutions, thus leaving young and qualified people overboard?

"We should get answers to all these questions rather soon."

A series of concerts and discos are due to be organised in Slovakia as part of the 'Vote Yes' campaign before the country's referendum on EU membership on 16-17 May 2003.