Elections

Serbian trade unions said they would start collecting signatures on Monday, demanding a referendum to change the new legislation. They need to collect 100,000 signatures to trigger a vote.

The move comes after 190 MPs voted on Friday in favour of amendments to the Labour Law. Only 21 voted against and four abstained.

Seventeen trade unions in Croatia have collected 612,017 signatures demanding a referendum on outsourcing services in the public sector, which they aim to halt.

The completed list of names was handed to the speaker of parliament, Josip Leko on Wednesday. The petition aimed at preventing public sector outsourcing was initiated in June.

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A leading union activist in Serbia said trade unions would call a general protest for Thursday, when parliament is due to adopt a controversial new Labour law.

The government has proposed a discussion in Parliament on Friday on whether a clutch of proposals by opposition parties for a debate on a referendum about the partial privatization of the Public Power Corporation can be approved but the main leftist opposition SYRIZA looked set to boycott the session.

Parliamentary speaker Evangelos Meimarakis and the House’s deputy speakers are due to meet at 2.30 p.m. to decide whether MPs should debate and vote on a referendum on the privatisation of the Public Power Corporation (PPC).

Parliament narrowly approved on Wednesday the sale of 30 percent of PPC but immediately afterwards opposition parties submitted proposals for a referendum.

By Angelos Stangos

Fifteen independent MPs on Tuesday backed a proposal by leftist SYRIZA for Parliament to launch a debate on a referendum on the government’s plans to part-privatize the Public Power Corporation (PPC) as government spokesperson Sofia Voultepsi insisted that separate proposals by opposition parties should not count as one.

A strike by Public Power Corporation (PPC) workers was called off on Sunday night, with attention now shifting to the parliamentary vote on legislation allowing the electricity monopoly to be privatized.

The authorities confirmed that a petition for a referendum to end official use of Serbian Cyrillic script in parts of Croatia has over 526,000 signatures – enough to trigger a vote.