Military

DATE=6/12/2003

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=CZECH REPUBLIC/E-U (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-304291

BYLINE=STEFAN BOS

DATELINE=BUDAPEST

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The Czech Republic holds a referendum Friday and Saturday on European Union membership. Six of the nine candidate countries slated to vote on joining next year have already voted 'yes,' and Czechs also appear to favor E-U membership. But as Stefan Bos reports from Budapest, the country's president is skeptical.

TEXT: /// SOUND OF SHOUTING, EST., FADE UNDER ///

Former Czech President Vaclav Havel attends a rally in Prague to drum up support for E-U membership. He says those who, in his words, "fuss about losing our sovereignty" are "misguided."

Mr. Havel adds that "sovereignty will be lost - by the people who deserve to lose it." But his political rival and current Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, disagrees.

Mr. Klaus compares joining the European Union to being a "lump of sugar dropped into a cup of coffee." He has suggested that entry into the union would shorten the period of independence that the Czech Republic has enjoyed since Soviet domination ended in 1989.

While that is music in the ears of those Czechs who will vote 'no,' opinion polls show that about three out of every four voters favor joining the 15-nation union.

/// OPT /// And unlike the other mainly former Communist countries holding referenda on the issue, the Czech Republic does not require a minimum 50-percent voter turnout to validate the process. /// END OPT ///

Still, Monika Pajerova, a former student activist from the 1989 overthrow of communism, has been busily encouraging people to go out and vote. Ms. Pajerova, who leads the "Yes for Europe" non-profit group, told Radio Prague that a low turnout would send the wrong message.

/// PAJEROVA ACT ///

/// OPT /// We don't have the 50-percent threshold, as the Poles did, for example, but we think that it is very important that the "Yes" is strong. Because if only a few people come, even if 75 percent of those few people say, "Yes," it's a very weak "Yes." /// END OPT /// We need a strong "Yes." We need to show that this is really the will of the Czech people, and I think it's the biggest occasion since maybe 17th November 1989.

/// END ACT ///

Ms. Pajerova and other E-U supporters claim that membership will further improve living standards in the country of roughly 10-million people, which split from Slovakia in 1993.

/// REST OPT ///

Czech voters have watched as Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Malta have given their blessing to E-U entry, although low turnouts tempered the mood in several countries.

Voters in Poland overwhelmingly approved E-U entry in a referendum last Saturday and Sunday, and Estonia and Latvia are expected to vote this fall. Cyprus does not plan to hold a ballot on the issue. (Signed)

NEB/SB/ALW/TW/FC