The role of referendums in the establishment of states in Europe following 1989

The institution of the referendum is one of the forms of direct democracy. Referendums are understood as direct suffrage on important matters of state, or a part of its territory, that constitute the subject of the vote. In the processes of democratic transformation, outlooks on this institution of direct democracy evolve. Referendums have become a tool to express the will of the nation to choose in matters of sovereignty. This form of asking the nation has turned out to be effective for those communities with a strong sense of national identity and the belief that it is necessary for the state to be revived as a sovereign entity. The results of the referenda held in the Baltic states, in the Balkans and Ukraine have confirmed their peoples’ wills to independently exist within the framework of a sovereign state