The President of Slovakia refused to hold a referendum on the lifting of sanctions against Russia

Conducting in Slovakia holds a referendum on the lifting of sanctions against Russia. This was announced on June 4 by Slovak President Peter Pellegrini.

"It is impossible to declare a referendum with the proposed issue," he said during his address.

According to him, during the study of the petition proposed to him, he came to the conclusion that it did not meet the necessary requirements. In particular, its text was unclear and could not be interpreted unambiguously.

"It is not clear from the question whether we are talking about the future, that is, about the instruction to reject new possible sanctions, or should it concern the current sanctions, for the adoption of which Slovakia has already voted 17 times?"  Pellegrini added.

At the same time, he noted that the Slovak prime minister has the right not to vote for what, in his opinion, harms Slovakia.

"The position of the prime Minister is described by his office in the following words: in the process of adopting sanctions, Slovakia carefully assesses their potential impact on the economy, trade and bilateral relations with third countries and will not agree to such measures that would run counter to the interests, security or sovereignty of the Slovak Republic," Pellegrini said.

Recall, in early May, activists in Slovakia handed over to the Office of the President of the Republic a petition for a referendum on the lifting of sanctions against Russia. The leader of the Slovak Renaissance Movement, Robert Shvets, said that 395,401 signatures were collected with the necessary 350 thousand. The authors of the petition proposed to hold a referendum with the question: "Do you agree that Slovakia should not apply sanctions against Russia, which harm Slovak citizens and entrepreneurs?".