Dutch citizens reject Ukraine-EU Association Agreement

The citizens of the Netherlands resoundingly rejected the ratification of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement in an April 6 consultative referendum that had a voter turnout of 32 percent, reported the eurointegration.com.ua news site. About 64% voted against ratification, compared to 36% in favor. Only 22 out of 390 municipalities voted in favor. An exit poll conducted confirmed that 59% of those voting against cited Ukraine’s high level of corruption as their reason. Another 34% said they opposed the agreement being a step towards Ukrainian membership in the EU.

Dutch MP Harry van Bommel, a leading opponent to the agreement, called for the Dutch government to cancel its plans for ratification and renew talks to amend the text of the agreement. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte confirmed that the referendum’s results require that the government review the text of the agreement. “The referendum law is very clear and we will – days, weeks and step-by-step – review this agreement with Ukraine in order to satisfy all sides, both at the national and the European level,”  he said, as reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The referendum’s results don’t affect the current implementation of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, including its Free Trade Area, said on April 6 Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Ukrainian government will continue to work with the EU within the framework of the existing bodies of this agreement, he said, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine. “Ukraine’s Euro-integration won’t be stopped and we will move along this road,” he said. The referendum reflects the attitude of Dutch citizens towards the European Union and the desire of Euroskeptics to undermine the EU’s unity, he said.

Zenon Zawada: Though the results are not binding, they hold great symbolic value and are a geopolitical victory for the Russian government, which has outperformed the West in the information war over Ukraine. Helping the Russian propaganda campaign has been the disturbing pattern of corruption set by the post-maidan Ukrainian government, including the president, which has done much to hurt the image of Ukraine among Europeans. The timing of the release of the Panama papers, as well as the bombing in nearby Brussels amid a migrant crisis, didn’t work in Ukraine’s favor. Moreover, the Dutch Euroskeptics, working in cooperation with the Russians, succeeded in turning a simple referendum on Ukraine into a symbolic protest vote against the European Union as a whole.

Through its partners in the Netherlands and EU structures, the Russian government will use this opportunity to amend the agreement to its favor, if not derail it all together. Yet we don’t believe this single referendum is capable of stopping the Association Agreement from being ultimately ratified because the governments of 27 out of 28 EU nation-states have already approved it, well as the EU parliament. Additionally, both the lower and upper chambers of the Dutch parliament have approved it and are scheduled to sign post-referendum acts to make their ratification final. In our view, this vote will only delay the Netherlands’ ratification, possibly giving the Russians some concessions in the process.

Domestically, we are confident the referendum’s results will intensify the pro-Western opposition to president Petro Poroshenko, which is being led by former PM Yulia Tymoshenko and Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi. Polls already show that their respective political forces stand to make big gains in the early parliamentary elections that are widely expected this fall.