THE HAGUE, Netherlands—The Dutch voted Wednesday in a referendum on a far-reaching free trade deal meant to foster closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union that has run into opposition in the Netherlands where many see it as evidence of unwanted EU expansionism.
The non-binding vote in the Netherlands exposes deep divisions about this country’s place in Europe and comes less than three months before British citizens decide in their own referendum whether to leave the EU altogether.
Dutch opponents of the EU-Ukraine association agreement argue its ultimate goal is bringing Kiev into the EU. Supporters say it is not a membership stepping stone and will boost trade and help battle corruption and improve human rights in the former Soviet republic on Europe’s restive eastern edge.
“It’s about solidarity with a country which wants to develop itself and I believe, in (the) longer term, I would like for Ukraine to have both a stable relationship with Europe and with Russia,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said after voting.
Popular anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders, a fierce opponent of the EU, said he hoped the vote would give hope to other nations questioning their place in Europe.
After casting his ballot at a school on the outskirts of The Hague, Wilders said the Dutch referendum could act as an incentive to British voters to reject the European Union in June. “So it could be today that it is the start of the end of the European Union as we know it today and that would be very good,” he said.
Much of the deal between the EU and Ukraine already is being provisionally implemented but the Netherlands’ ratification, approved last year by both houses of Parliament, was put on ice pending the outcome of the referendum.
Exactly what will happen to the agreement if the Dutch vote against it remains unclear, but politicians all say Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s coalition government will have to take the result seriously. The advisory referendum is declared valid only if voter turnout is over 30 percent.
The Netherlands is a founding member of the European Union, a trading nation that benefits from the EU’s internal market, but paradoxically it also is a hotbed of Euroskepticism that rejected the bloc’s proposed constitution in a 2005 referendum.
In an interview earlier this year with a Dutch newspaper, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned that a “No” vote “would open the door to a great continental crisis.”
The referendum, the first in the Netherlands since the country rejected the EU constitution, was forced by a loose coalition of Euro-skeptics that managed to gather nearly 430,000 signatures in just six weeks last year.
Opponents say that the EU should not be dealing with Ukraine’s leadership because of the widespread corruption in the country. President Petro Poroshenko, a candy magnate who won elections in 2014, has been accused, following the leak of millions of records on offshore accounts, of abusing his office and of tax evasion by moving his business offshore, possibly depriving the country of millions of dollars in taxes.
Poroshenko’s rise to power began after Ukrainians rose up against their government in February 2014 because of then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the association agreement.
But supporters of the deal say it is important for the EU to implement such agreements to boost stability at its borders.
Michiel van Hulten, an activist who supports the pact, told a nationally televised debate Tuesday night, “For me, it is about Ukrainian people who want to be free and democratic and prosperous like us.”
