THE HAGUE: Seated in a handsome 19th century office around the corner from the main railway station in The Hague, Ria Oonk is facing an uphill struggle against Euro scepticism. Telephone hotlines and websites, hundreds of thousands of glossy leaflets, TV spots with rappers, are pouring forth from her office as she attempts to mobilise an electorate that shows every sign of being thoroughly glum about the referendum on Europe’s future.

“This one is different. It’s new. It’s one big experiment,” said Ms Oonk, who is in charge of the Dutch government’s campaign to get out the vote. It will be the first referendum in the Netherlands since the end of the Napoleonic wars. A government official noted that as the first referendum for 200 years “it may well be the last one for another 200 years, especially if the verdict is no”.

But that, to the consternation of the Dutch government, is the way things are going as the people engage in their first real national debate about the EU. Two recent opinion polls put the no camp comfortably ahead, 60-40 in one, 53-47 in the other. And most dispiritingly for Ms Oonk’s campaign, only one in three voters have said they will vote in a country where 80 per cent regularly turn out for general elections.

Ton Verheijen, a 40-year-old personnel worker, was one not interested in voting on this. “I’m interested in the problems here. If the politicians can’t solve the small problems here, how can they solve the big ones over there?” Another man said: “I’m definitely voting no. I’m Dutch, I like being Dutch, and I want to stay Dutch. We don’t need this. They want to take away our parliament and turn us into a small province in a super-state, like America. No thanks.”

The grumblers are ubiquitous. “The chances are high that we will say no,” said Maurice De Hond, head of the Peil polling agency. “The elites here have never involved the public on anything to do with the EU. Now all the negative elements are piling up. The gap is widening in favour of the no camp.” The Netherlands will deliver a verdict three days after France’s fateful vote on the European constitution on May 29. Although both races will be close, a double whammy no from France and Holland will be a knockout blow, triggering a new EU crisis and sending the union’s planners back to the drawing board.

The surprise is that the Netherlands, a founding member of the EU, and home to the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties, is so polarised. A haven of consensus, tolerance and coalition politics for two generations, Holland is changing, trying to cope with immigration, Muslim militancy and populist politics.

One aspect of the change, it appears, is a falling out of love with Europe. “There was no real debate here on the big issues in the 1990s, like the single currency. There were no referendums here as there were in other countries,” said Kees Versteegh, a leading EU analyst. “Now people have an opportunity to speak out for the first time.” A pro-EU government official says the Netherlands is stuck in a phase of introspection, cutting itself off internationally.

“This is bigger than a vote on Europe. It’s about closing down Holland. People are saying ‘look at [non-EU members] Norway or Switzerland, they’re doing fine’. We’re scared and many politicians are trying to keep us scared.”

Others disagree, noting that the Netherlands remains fundamentally pro-EU, but against the constitution on grounds it is a step too far, too fast. “In our polling, it’s only 15-20 per cent that want out of the EU,” said Mr De Hond. “We want to put the brakes on.” The Dutch economy is in the doldrums, and, as home to a large Turkish minority, the country is also mainly against entry to the EU by Turkey. Last year’s EU expansion into eastern and central Europe was also unpopular. And, most of all, EU membership is widely seen as too costly, a view fed by the finance minister, Gerrit Zalm, who is running a Thatcher-style campaign for a Brussels refund.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service