Awaiting further yes votes” “

The first was that of Malta, which inaugurated the series of referendums on EU membership on 8 March 2003. 53% of voters expressed a favourable view on membership application. 45% said no, while only 2% invalidated their votes. Slovenia also expressed a decided “yes” to membership of both EU and NATO. In the referendum on 23 March, some 1.6 million Slovene electors expressed almost unanimous approval of EU membership (88%) and a more guarded approval of entry into NATO (66%). An overwhelming majority in favour of the EU membership was also registered in Hungary: l’83.8% voted yes. Lithuania also went to the polls on Sunday, 11 May. The next to vote will be Slovakia (16-17/5), Czech Republic (15-16/6), Estonia (14/9) and Latvia (20/9). Cyprus has organized no referendum. Lithuania. Lithuania too has said “yes” to the European Union. In the referendum held on 10-11 May the largest of the Baltic States expressed itself in favour of EU membership: 90.97% voted yes, against 9.03% who voted no. “It’s a source of great hope for our country”, commented the vice-president of the Episcopal Conference of Lithuania, Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevicius of Kaunas, underlining the huge majority in favour. “This very high percentage – he said – reveals the consensus of the population on an important issue like that of enlargement. What Lithuania expects from Europe is especially an improvement in living conditions, which are very poor for many Lithuanians. Our young people hope that cooperation with other countries will make it easier for them to study abroad”. Nonetheless Msgr. Tamkevicius does not disguise the difficulties of membership: “We are conscious that entry into Europe involves all the risks that derive from the secularization of the old continent. We cannot conceal our Christian roots. Indeed, we hope that these will be cited in the European Constitution”. Slovakia and Poland. 8 June represents a decisive date for Poland in her bid to join the EU: it’s then that the referendum will be held that will call 38 million Poles to vote on EU entry. If the “yes” vote should triumph, Poland will also be the first of the new members to convert to the Euro. The changeover to the single currency should take place by 2007, with an exchange rate currently estimated at 4.4-4.5 zloty for each euro. The Polish bishops, led by Cardinal Glemp, have prepared a document on the referendum, which will be read out in all churches on Sunday, 1st June. They will repeat the appeal they have already made on other occasions: that of voting in the referendum. “Each Pole – write the bishops – the more so as a man of faith, in the consciousness of the responsibility for the future and the place that awaits our country in the family of European nations, ought to participate in the referendum… by expressing his/her own vote in conformity with as wide as possible a knowledge of the facts and with the conscience formed by the faith and by the objective moral criteria that derive from it”. The Polish bishops emphasize that “the surest indication to follow is that of John Paul II” who has recalled how important it is that Poland should have “the place she deserves in the political and economic structures of united Europe”. EU membership however should not involve Poland’s renunciation of her “own spiritual and cultural image”, still less “her own historical tradition linked to Christianity ever since its origins”. On the same wave length as the Polish bishops are also those of Slovakia, who have repeatedly urged the population to vote in the referendum, though without giving them precise indications on how to vote. “The bishops – explains their spokesman Msgr. Mariàn Gavenda – leave freedom of vote to the faithful, of whom they ask as objective and critical as possible a knowledge of the question at issue in the ballot. Last September, the Slovak Episcopal Conference distributed a brochure reminding the laity of the need for political commitment, and explaining what is the European Union and on what values it ought to be founded”.