European Interest

Czech cabinet backs referendum bill safeguarding against Czexit

Flickr/Michal Hrubý/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
A picture from a pro-Czexit demonstration in Prague, Czech Republic.

Draft legislation to make it tough to call a referendum in the Czech Republic was approved by the country’s prime minister in a bid to safeguard against potential to exit the European Union. The bill is now headed to the parliament for a vote.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s minority government has sought to prevent any EU referendum in the largely euroskeptic nation.

According to the Reuters news agency, the draft law requires at least 850,000 signatures to call any national referendum. And, for any measure to gain approval it would need support of more than a half of eligible voters in the country

In other news, Babis’s party, the runaway election winner last year, is still lacking a parliamentary majority. This is why the party is meeting with the Social Democrats.

Babis, a billionaire businessman before entering government after 2013 elections, aims to have a new administration in place by mid-year.

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