Dutch urge EU to lower ambition: Second blow to constitution
THE HAGUE, June 2: The Dutch government called on Thursday for the European Union to scale back its ambitions after voters in the Netherlands and France triggered an unprecedented political crisis by rejecting the bloc’s constitution. After the crushing blow from Wednesday’s Dutch referendum, Mr Balkenende told parliament that the message his government would take to Brussels was not ‘always more and always further’ but ‘how can we bring Europe closer to the people’.
In a parliamentary debate, Foreign Minister Ben Bot added that the union ‘should limit itself to tasks the member states cannot handle alone’. Just three days after France resoundingly rejected the treaty, Dutch voters followed suit with the ‘no’ camp raking in an overwhelming 61.6 per cent of the votes, in what could be a death-blow to a text designed to streamline the way the bloc is run as it becomes ever larger.
With Europe reeling from the French and Dutch ballots, which exposed deep divisions over the continent’s future direction, the Netherlands struggled to understand what the result says about the country it has become and the place it holds in the Union.
“It is clear that voters not only reject the constitution, but also how things are going now in the EU,” said Mr Balkenende, whose centre-right government had campaigned for a ‘yes’ vote.
Mr Bot said the massive Dutch rejection meant the Netherlands ‘will have to take up clearer positions’ within the EU, and promised that ‘in the coming months we will labour vigorously to diminish (EU) regulations’.
Many in the Netherlands said they voted against the constitution because they feared a loss of sovereignty to a European ‘superstate’.
They believe a rapidly expanding EU could swallow up their nation and that focusing power in Brussels could eventually undermine the Dutch welfare state and force the country to revise its cherished liberalism on such issues as cannabis and euthanasia.
The referendum was not binding, but the government had pledged to respect the result if turnout exceeded 30 per cent.
It reached 62 percent in the end, and Mr Balkenende has already announced he plans to officially withdraw the bill asking for ratification.
Observers here said that the Dutch ‘no’ vote was not so much anti-European integration, but rather about the pace of the developments and also directed at the political establishment in general in Brussels and in the Netherlands.
“I don’t think this is a vote against Europe, but it is a motion of distrust against those in power,” Hans van der Horst, author of the book, “Understanding the Dutch’, said.
A poll on Wednesday by the Maurice de Hond institute revealed that 11 per cent of ‘no’ voters their ballot as a protest against the political situation in the Netherlands, while 58 per cent said their ‘no’ was against developments within the European Union, such as its enlargement last year to include 10 mainly eastern European countries.
Thirty per cent of ‘no’ voters said they did not agree with the content of the text itself.
“I think people voted about their feelings about Europe. They have the idea, especially with the introduction of the euro and a possible accession of Turkey, that it is going too fast,” political commentator Paul Scheffer said.
The stinging defeat on the heels of the French vote on Sunday, where nearly 55 per cent rejected the charter, may prove fatal to a treaty cherished by EU officials but viewed warily by much of the continent’s population.
The text must be ratified by all 25 European Union states to take effect.
Its supporters say it would prevent institutional gridlock as the bloc gets larger and would ensure long-term social and economic progress.—AFP
