RFE/RL's Brussels correspondent Rikard Jozwiak has been in the Netherlands this week to gauge the mood ahead of the Dutch referendum:
Dutch Vote On Ukraine Deal Could Reverberate Throughout Europe
AMSTERDAM -- When Dutch voters head to the polls on April 6 they could say a lot about the future of the European Union.
Technically, they will be voting in a referendum on whether to approve or reject the bloc's Association Agreement with Ukraine, a pact that would bring the country closer politically and economically to the EU that has been ratified by all members aside from the Netherlands.
But the impact of "no" result -- a scenario that is predicted by opinion polls, but also dependent on sufficient voter turnout -- would be felt not only in Kyiv and Brussels, but in Moscow, London, and beyond.
Far-Reaching
It would certainly be a harsh blow to Ukraine, whose population has paid a high price for seeking closer association with the EU. It was, after all, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign the Association Agreement in late 2013 that prompted the Euromaidan protests, which led to his ouster, Russia's annexation of Crimea, and a drawn-out conflict with Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
It would be celebrated by the Kremlin, which has long opposed the agreement, and would be poised to wield its influence on trade aspects of any future renegotiation process. That outrage over Russia's suspected role in the July 2014 downing of an airliner over eastern Ukraine -- in which 193 of the 298 passengers killed were Dutch -- would not translate to votes for Ukraine would be another coup for Moscow.
A "no" vote would also add fuel to rising Euroskepticism amid a refugee crisis, and serve as a bad omen ahead of the United Kingdom's June 23 referendum on whether to remain in the EU.
It is less clear what would happen should the Netherlands fail to ratify the Association Agreement. It is possible that the EU could continue to provisionally apply the deal (the trade aspects of the agreement were delayed until the beginning of this year in a nod to Russian financial concerns, while the political side has been applied since autumn of 2014) meaning there would be few disruptions to existing relations. If the terms of the deal are altered, it would require more negotiations and the ratification process that began more than a year ago among the EU's 28 states would have to start anew.
All the mainstream Dutch parties have campaigned for a "yes" vote, arguing that it will bring more safety and economic growth both in the EU and in Ukraine.
"It's about trade, it's about safety, it's about normal things that in Europe, in the European Union are normal for us," says Alexander Pechtold, the parliamentary leader of the liberal D66 party. "We fought for it, we negotiated for it, during 70 years, and now another country, a country to the borders of the European Union, wants to have the same standards, the same values, and I think that that country -- bigger than France, with 45 million inhabitants -- should deserve the same rights as we have."
The 'No' Camp
The Dutch electorate does not appear to agree about the merits of the deal, which is intended to facilitate trade and bring Ukrainian laws and regulations closer to those of the EU.
Recent polls show that as many as 66 percent of Dutch voters would reject the agreement, although turnout would have to pass 30 percent in order for the nonbinding referendum to be valid. In that event, the Dutch government has pledged to honor the outcome.
Many voters oppose the Association Agreement in the belief that it would mark the first step toward Ukrainian membership of the EU, a notion that "yes" supporters have worked to dispel.
“There are a lot of myths that have been created around this association agreement," says Dutch Labor parliamentarian Marit Maij. "At all the meetings that I have participated in in the last three weeks I always try to tell people it is not in the treaty that Ukraine will become a member."
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