ZAGREB, Croatia - Police clashed Saturday with a group of nationalist protesters who attempted to take down an EU flag on the eve of the country's membership referendum.
The clash occurred at the end of protest rally by about 1,000 mostly war veterans and right-wing protesters opposed to Croatia's joining the European Union.
Several people were injured and police detained at least three demonstrators.
The incident fuels tensions ahead of the referendum Sunday when Croatia's citizens will answer the question: "Do you support the membership of the Republic of Croatia in the European Union?"
The country signed an accession treaty with the EU last year and is set to join the 27-nation bloc in July 2013.
The latest survey ahead of the vote suggests that about 60 per cent Croats are pro-EU. Those against have insisted that Croatia has nothing to gain by joining.
"We won't have any say in our own affairs any more," Natko Kovacevic, one of the organizers of the protest, told the crowd gathered in the capital, Zagreb.
Protesters carried banners reading "No to EU" or "I love Croatia." They chanted anti-EU slogans.
Police intervened against a group of a few dozen people who moved to take down the EU flag from a pole. Organizers -- who claim that displaying foreign flags is illegal -- urged voters to reject EU membership and remove EU flags from elsewhere in the country.
"Of course I am against the EU," said pensioner Visnja Skreblin. "I still have a mind of my own."
Croatia is faced with serious economic problems, including unemployment at around 17 per cent and a budget gap projected at 6.2 per cent of gross domestic product. The World Bank has predicted recession and a 1.0 per cent decrease of the country's GDP in 2012.
Out of the six former Yugoslav republics, only Slovenia is an EU member, since 2004. The former communist federation collapsed in a series of bloody wars in the 1990s.
Besides the Croatian referendum, the accession treaty has to be ratified by all 27 member states before it can enter the bloc.
