EU Accession Referendums in the Baltic States

A little more than a decade ago, the Central and Eastern European Candidate Countries established strong constitutional guarantees for safeguarding their re-gained sovereignty. In order to legitimise EU membership, they are now revising the pouvoir constituant’s recent pact for sovereign governance and holding accession referendums.

Probably most sensitive of all has the issue of referendum been in the three Baltic countries. This article takes a closer look and provides an overview of the process and procedures concerning referendums in the Baltic states. The first part outlines the types of referendums and their main procedural differences. The second part discusses the political and procedural tensions concerning the accession referendums, which have led to a delicate manoeuvring and, to some extent, changes of the rules in the middle of the game in all three countries. Now, ahead of EU membership, they are revising the pouvoir constituant’s recent pact for exclusively domestic exercise of powers and are in the process of amending their constitutions and holding accession referendums, in order to legitimise the delegation of sovereign competences for exercising them jointly with EU Member States.The final part shows that these procedures are not just an internal problem of the Baltic Countries - they are may also become also relevant for the EU future debate as concerns the revision of the EU treaty amendment procedure.