Ballot measures

The Association of Relatives of the Victims of the 2023 Tempe railway disaster is planning to send a petition to Parliament demanding legislative action to lift ministers' and MPs' immunity from criminal prosecution.

An initiative committee, which started a petition to call a referendum against "gender ideology" and was supported by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), managed to collect a little over 208,000 signatures for the three-month period it had (it expired on July 26).

French President Emmanuel Macron's highly unpopular pension law passed another hurdle after the Constitutional Council rejected the opposition's second proposal to hold a referendum to limit the retirement age to 62, Reuters reported.

Macron has defied fierce union opposition and weeks of sometimes violent protests against his plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

193 MPs voted for the adoption, i.e. all those who were present.
The law shall enter into force less than eight days from the day of its publication in the Official Gazette, by a special decision of the deputies. These amendments change several articles in relation to the recently adopted Law on Referendum and People's Initiative.

Serbia's government will withdraw amendments it proposed to the Law on Expropriation and make key changes to the Law on Referendums and People's Initiative, it said on Wednesday.

According to RTS, the question is: "Are you in favor of confirming the act on changing the constitution of the Republic of Serbia?"
The proposal was sent to the Republic Election Commission, which should give an opinion on it.

178 deputies voted for the law, two were against, and no one abstained.
This law should regulate the manner of direct voting, i.e. decision-making of citizens by referendum, and the manner in which the people's initiative will be realized in the future.

Ljubljana – A civil initiative opposing the latest changes to the waters act has submitted almost 50,000 signatures in support of its initiative to hold a referendum on the law, which was passed at the end of March. The National Assembly must now meet to formally call a referendum in seven days.

"This referendum, like several others before it, is a form of political campaign and anti-government mobilisation. But with regards to its strong signature collection effort and the level of discontent with the current government, it could be precisely this plebiscite that ends up being very successful," political scientist Juraj Marusiak of the Slovak Academy of Sciences tells BIRN.

Ljubljana – The collection of signatures for a referendum on the water act started on Tuesday amidst appeals by environmentalists that water sources should be protected and warnings by the government that the referendum would actually be damaging for water sources and for people living along bodies of water.