A petition demanding a referendum on Slovakia’s entry into NATO starts on Tuesday at 11 a.m. in Bratislava, in the presence of petition committee’ members and signatories of the civil initiative for the referendum. The petition starts at the same time in other large cities in Slovakia, Kosice, Banska Bystrica and Presov. Also residents of Zvolen, Lucenec and Velky Krtis will have the opportunity to support the initiative from Tuesday.

Head of the petition committee Rudolf Chmelar could not say exactly where in Slovakia the petition would spread further because it is based on volunteers. However, he thinks that almost all citizens will come into contact with the petition because the number of volunteers seems to be high. Though the committee’ website is functional just two days already dozens people showed interest to help with collecting signatures, Mr. Chmelar said. He underscored that this shows people’s interest to decide in a plebiscite on such important issue as country’s membership in the alliance.

The civil initiative for a referendum on NATO entry is calling on Slovak citizens to support a petition to hold a referendum on Slovakia’s NATO entry. Thirty-eight signatories to the petition, including former justice minister Jan Carnogursky, consider the issue of Slovakia’s NATO entry as far too important to leave the decision up to a narrow political group. Its initiators explain that the petition pursues the announcement of a referendum over this key issue and its goal is not to make citizens oppose NATO entry. The ruling parties do not support the initiative and recommend their sympathizers to ignore it.