Authorities checking petition for "referendum on Cyrillic"

Authorities checking petition for "referendum on Cyrillic"

The petition was submitted to the Croatian assembly in Zagreb last December, by a group of right-wing activist and war veterans calling themselves "The Headquarters for the Defense of the Croatian Vukovar."

The group has been at the forefront of a campaign to prevent the displaying of bilingual signs on public buildings in towns, including Vukovar, where the Serb minority constitutes more than 30 percent of the population.

Under the current Croatian law, an ethnic minority that makes up 30 percent in an area has a right to the official use of its language and alphabet - the Serbian Cyrillic in the case of the Serb minority. But under the proposal tabled by the Vukovar group, "a minority" would in the future constitute 50 percent of a local population.

The HQ for the Defense of the Croatian Vukovar said it gathered 650,000 signatures in favor of this proposal being put forward in a referendum.

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović stated on several occasions that such a referendum would not be held because it would not in line with EU standards, which Croatia, the organization's newest member, accepted during its accession negotiations.