Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum, 2016

Dutch EU-Ukraine Association Agreement referendum
Are you for or against the Approval Act of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine?
Location	Netherlands
Date	6 April 2016 (2016-04-06)
Results Votes  % For 1,571,874 38.21% Against 2,509,395 61.00% Blank votes 32,344 0.79% Valid votes 4,113,613 99.08% Invalid votes 38,000 0.92% Total votes 4,151,613 100.00% Eligible to vote/turnout 12,862,658 32.28%
Results by municipality (plurality of votes)   For   Against
Suspensory, non-binding referendum which has effect when a simple majority votes "Against" and turnout is at least 30%.

The Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum was a referendum on the approval of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine, held in the Netherlands on 6 April 2016. The referendum question was: "Are you for or against the Approval Act of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine?"

With a turnout of 32.28%, the threshold for a valid referendum was met. 61% of votes were against the Approval Act. As the Act was rejected, the States General has to enact a follow-up law to either repeal the Act or put it into effect after all. The referendum is the first since the enactment of the Advisory Referendum Act (Wet raadgevend referendum) on 1 July 2015.

The decision to hold a referendum was made after more than 427,000 valid requests were received within six weeks, more than the required number of 300,000 requests. The referendum was suspensory and non-binding, which means that the law's provisions on entry into force are suspended at least until the referendum was held.

Background

Advisory Referendum Act

Main article: Referendums in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, most types of primary laws can be subjected to a suspensory, non-binding referendum after royal assent and proclamation. The request procedure of a referendum consists of two stages. For the initial request, 10,000 requests have to be received within four weeks after proclamation of the law. After the requirements for this stage are met, 300,000 requests have to be received within six weeks after the completion of the initial request.

Association Agreement

Main article: Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement

The Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement is a treaty between the European Union (EU), Euratom, their 28 Member States and Ukraine that establishes a political and economic association between the parties. The parties committed to co-operate and converge economic policy, legislation, and regulation across a broad range of areas, including equal rights for workers, steps towards visa-free movement of people, the exchange of information and staff in the area of justice, the modernisation of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, and access to the European Investment Bank. The parties committed to regular summit meetings, and meetings among ministers, other officials, and experts. The agreement furthermore establishes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between the parties. The agreement enters into force upon ratification by all parties, but parts of the agreement are already applied provisionally.

The Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement Approval Act was voted upon in the House of Representatives and Senate in 2015. People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Labour Party (PvdA), Democrats 66 (D66), Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), ChristianUnion (CU), GreenLeft (GL), Reformed Political Party (SGP), 50PLUS, Group Kuzu/Öztürk and independent MPs Houwers, Klein and Van Vliet voted in favour. Socialist Party, Party for Freedom, Groep Bontes/Van Klaveren and Party for the Animals voted against. The parties voted correspondingly in the Senate and the Independent Senate Group voted in favour. The Act received royal assent on 8 July 2015. The Minister of Foreign Affairs published a decision in the Staatscourant on the same day, at which point the law became eligible for a referendum.

Pending its entry into force, specific parts of the Agreement have been applied provisionally since 1 November 2014 and 1 January 2016 (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area). According to Minister of Foreign Affairs Bert Koenders, this concerns about 70% of the Agreement, covering exclusive competence of the European Union.

Request

GeenPeil, a cooperation between the website GeenStijl, Burgercomité EU and Forum voor Democratie, organised the campaign to collect the required signatures. They deployed a web application to collect, print and deliver the signatures to the Dutch Electoral Council (Kiesraad). Burgercomité EU is an organisation run by Pepijn van Houwelingen, Arjan van Dixhoorn, and Beata Supheert. Thierry Baudet is the founder of Forum voor Democratie.

Stage	Required	Received	Valid
Preliminary requests	10,000	14,441	13,480
Definitive requests	300,000	472,849	427,939

On 14 October 2015, the Electoral Council held that both stages had been completed. An appeal was lodged with the adjudicative division of the Council of State, challenging the use of the web application to collect the signatures. On 26 October, the Council held that the claimant had no legal standing and dismissed the appeal. The Referendum Committee announced on 29 October that the referendum would be held on 6 April 2016.

Initial reactions

In response to parliamentary questions, Rutte said that he would await the course of the referendum and its result to decide how to move forward. A majority in the House of Representatives, with the exception of VVD and D66, subsequently declared that they would respect the outcome of the referendum if the turnout exceeded 30%, even though it is not binding.

A March 2016 survey found that 72% of Ukrainians wanted the Dutch to vote "yes", 13% wanted them to vote "no" and 15% were undecided. According to former Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden Carl Bildt: "Were the European Union to turn its back on Ukraine and tear up the agreement – which is what the 'No' side in the Dutch debate wants – there is little doubt that this would encourage further Russian destabilisation of and aggression against Ukraine." The United States Department of State said that it is "in the interest of the United States, of the Netherlands, of the EU to help ensure that Ukraine becomes a democratic and economically stable country."

Campaign

The Government strategy for its campaign included the advice to call the Association Agreement a "cooperation agreement" ("samenwerkingsverdrag") instead of an association agreement as well as to highlight trade as a key component of the Agreement.

According to Robert van Voren, proponents of the referendum were able to "accumulate four times the maximum campaign subsidy they were allowed to receive from the Dutch government". He said that a businessman supporting the "no" campaign had been granted €50,000 and organisers of the referendum had received funds for campaigns "against", "in favour" and "neutral" but the latter two were "so cleverly written that they too evoked an "against" feeling".

Open Society Foundations, a non-profit organization led by American billionaire George Soros, announced to the NOS that it would spend €200,000 on a "yes"-campaign.

In April 2016, the European Parliament began investigating the use of a European subsidy to buy a full-page advertisement in De Telegraaf to gather signatures in favour of holding the referendum. Nigel Farage said he had helped arranged financing for the advertisement.

Opinion polling

Date(s) conducted	For	Against	Undecided	Sample	Conducted by
30 March–1 April 2016	25%	40%	13% undecided, 11% leaning for, 12% leaning against	27,253	EenVandaag
25–28 March 2016	36%	47%	18%	2,382	I&O Research
13–20 March 2016	40%	60%	N/A	3,000+	Peil.nl
4–7 March 2016	33%	44%	23%	2,510	I&O Research
21–25 February 2016	19%	30%	22% undecided, 14% leaning for, 15% leaning against	29,650	EenVandaag
29 January–8 February 2016	32%	38%	30%	2,388	I&O Research
1–7 February 2016	40%	60%	N/A	3,000+	Peil.nl
12–21 January 2016	31%	38%	31%	2,550	I&O Research
18–28 December 2015	13%	51%	13% leaning for, 23% leaning against	27,151	EenVandaag
3–20 December 2015	25%	41%	34%	3,490	I&O Research

Results

Referendum under the consultative referendum act are not binding and for it to be valid a turnout of at least 30% of eligible voters is required, of which a simple majority (over 50%) defines the result. In the event of a valid vote against the Act, the States General has to enact a new law to repeal the Act or provide for its entry into force. As long as the Approval Act has not entered into force, the instrument of ratification cannot be deposited by the Netherlands as a result of which the Agreement as a whole cannot enter into force.

The referendum was valid—the turnout was roughly 32.3%; the treaty was rejected, with 61% of voters voting against it and 38.2% of voters voting for it.

Reactions

Dutch Government

The Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, responded that if the turnout was above 30 percent with such a large margin of victory for the "No" camp, then his sense was that ratification could not simply go ahead. The leader of the coalition Labour Party, Diederik Samsom, also felt that they could not ratify the treaty in this fashion.

The Dutch government campaigned in favour of the agreement. Rutte said that it is good for the European Union and the Netherlands and not to be seen as a first step to Ukraine's EU membership, saying: "We are a trading nation. We live by free trade agreements and Ukraine is another example of this [...] People who are inclined to vote No think it's a first step to EU membership. It has nothing to do with accession."

Academia

Simon Otjes, researcher at the Documentation Centre for Dutch Political Parties (DNPP) of the University of Groningen, stated that "polling now, before the start of the campaign, indicates that turn-out is likely to exceed 30% and that a majority of voters lean towards a no vote. Polls also indicate that when informed about the actual substance of the agreement, respondents tend to favour it."

Sijbren de Jong, writing in the EU Observer, said that the referendum was "curious": "It is a treaty of the kind the EU has with many countries: think Moldova, Jordan, Chile, and many others. [...] Interestingly, not a soul raised a finger back when these agreements were negotiated." Writing for the Kyiv Post, Jan Germen Janmaat and Taras Kuzio reported that the treaty's opponents were using "stereotypes, half-truths and demeaning propaganda" against Ukraine. Janmaat and Kuzio said that the no campaign "repeats Russian disinformation" and De Jong said that their arguments show "immediate parallels" with the Russian state media's portrayal of Ukraine. Andreas Umland called the result of the referendum "a propaganda triumph for Putin", "a lasting embarrassment for the Dutch nation", and "a public humiliation of millions of Ukrainians who, during the last years, have been fighting both peacefully and, on eastern Ukrainian battlefields, with arms for their national liberation and European integration." Opponents of the agreement, such as writer Leon de Winter, said that it goes well beyond the trade agreement and includes also political and military support. The Party for the Animals said that support for Ukraine was "problematic", calling it "the most corrupt country on the European continent".

Ukrainian authorities

According to Poroshenko: "the true goal of the Dutch referendum (was) to attack Europe's unity". This view is echoed in Slate, which cites the Dutch referendum as a good example of how Russian influence actually works in a Western European election. The European Commission will propose this month granting visa-free travel to Ukrainians despite the Dutch referendum vote against an EU-Ukraine agreement, arguing that "It may look as if we're ignoring the Dutch voters, but we have to keep our word to Ukraine"

Dutch press

In an interview with the Burgercomité EU, the members admitted they didn't really care about Ukraine at all, but are against the political system of the EU. After the referendum journalists started investigating the people of this orgs and found out founding member Pepijn van Houwelingen had published a book under a pseudonym. NRC Handelsblad, De Dagelijkse Standaard and De Groene Amsterdammer raised questions about the political motives of van Houwelingen, since, accoriding to them, the book romanticized fascism, repression and nationalism.

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons