The Dutch Referendum on EU-Ukraine Treaty Doesn’t Signal a Step Towards Nexit

Will the Netherlands exit from the EU after Dutch voters rebuffed the EU’s treaty with Ukraine in the April 6 referendum?

GeenPeil frontman Jan Roos, initiator of the Dutch referendum on the EU's treaty of association with Ukraine, follows the outcome of the referendum in Amsterdam on April 6, 2016. Dutch voters rejected a key EU-Kyiv pact in a referendum seen as a barometer of anti-EU feeling, but it was not immediately clear if enough people had taken part for the ballot to be valid, exit polls showed. Remko de Waal/AFP/Getty Images

The European Union’s treaty with Ukraine was rebuffed by Dutch voters on April 6 with over 60 percent rejecting it in a low turnout referendum. The government must now reconsider the treaty. Initiators of the referendum hope that it will be a step towards a “Nexit”—the exit of the Netherlands from the EU. But even if more Dutch referendums are possible on EU issues, a withdrawal from Europe is rather unlikely.

On July 1, 2015, the Advisory Referendum Act came into force in the Netherlands. If sufficient signatures are collected—10,000 in four weeks and then 300,000 in the subsequent six weeks—a referendum can now be held on a law or treaty. If the turnout is higher than 30 percent, the government is formally obliged to reconsider the law or treaty.

The Euroskeptic foundation Burgercomité EU favors the restoration of democratic sovereignty to the Netherlands, as it considers the cession of sovereignty by parliament an “act of treason.” And it perceived the Referendum Act as an opportunity to give the Dutch people a direct voice in the EU, and a way to mobilize opposition against the Netherlands membership of the EU.

The idea that a small trading country would be worse off outside the EU is still widespread.