The President of Slovakia announced the impossibility of a referendum on the lifting of sanctions against the Russian Federation.

It is impossible to hold a referendum in Slovakia on the lifting of EU sanctions against Russia, as the submitted petition does not meet the necessary requirements. This was announced on June 4 by President Peter Pellegrini at a press conference at the Presidential Palace.

"The requested referendum simply cannot be announced," the website of the TA3 TV channel quotes him as saying.

The Head of State explained that the document was not drafted as it should be. In particular, the text of the petition is unclear, Pellegrini noted, and therefore can be interpreted unambiguously. Thus, there were no legal conditions for declaring a referendum, the President of Slovakia said.

The authors of the petition suggested asking the citizens of the country the question: "Do you agree that Slovakia should not apply sanctions against Russia that harm Slovak citizens and entrepreneurs?"

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April 22, Slovak activist and chairman of the DOMOV party ("Dom — National Party") Pavol Slota stated that the petition for a referendum against sanctions against the Russian Federation had collected the legally established limit of 350,000 signatures. In total, the document was signed by 356,593 thousand citizens. Later, on May 5, the extra-parliamentary party of the Slovak Renaissance Movement (SDV) submitted a petition asking for a referendum to Pellegrini's office.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on May 17 that he would support a referendum on the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions in his country if such a vote took place. The head of the Slovak government stressed that sanctions against Russia often harm the European Union itself.