The organising committees for two referendum petitions initiated by the populist conservative Most party cost a total of 428,300 kuna (€57,106), the organisers revealed on Monday.

The cost of the collection of signatures for the referendum petitions was capped at 8 million kuna each.

From 4 to 18 December, the party collected signatures at over 1,200 venues across Croatia for the two referendum petitions: one for the transfer of the powers of the national COVID-19 crisis management team to the parliament, where all decisions concerning COVID crisis management should be approved by a two-thirds majority, and the other one for the abolition of COVID passes.

The referendum activities lasted from 2 December to 2 January, the organisers said on Monday.

The costs include lease of venues, banking services, transport, advertisement, printing services etc.

The costs incurred for the initiative to have COVID certificates revoked stand at 203,700 kuna.

The organisers said they had raised 205,000 in donations for the initiative to rescind COVID certificates. The bulk of that amount, or 170,000 kuna, was provided by the party, whereas citizens Ivan Pehar and Zeljko Ilijasevic donated 30,000 and 5,000 kuna respectively.

According to the organisers, 224,600 kuna was spent on the initiative for the transfer of the powers of the national COVID-19 crisis management team to the parliament.

The donations for this purpose came to 218,800 kuna, with Most itself donating 180,000 kuna. Furthermore, individuals donated amounts ranging from 50 to 30,000 kuna, the maximum amount that can be donated by an individual in a referendum initiative.

When this opposition party started collecting signatures, the Justice and Public Administration Ministry established that the minimum required number should be 368,446 valid signatures, that is 10 percent of the country’s electorate.

Party leader Bozo Petrov told a news conference on 23 December that the party had collected about 400,000 signatures and that the boxes with the signatures would be delivered to the national parliament on 24 January.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)