A 2015 Dutch initiative to boost democracy allowed for the calling of a non-binding referendum on an issue if activists could amass at least 300000 petitioners, the law relates to most law and treaties. To move a question to a national vote, promoters need to gather 10000 signatures in the two weeks following launch of the petition and secure the 300000 signatures within a further six weeks if this is achieved. This mechanism has been used to call a referendum on whether the Dutch should endorse an EU-Ukraine trade deal that the Dutch parliament has already endorsed.
The referendum garnered 450000 signatures and was seen to have been proposed by Eurosceptics, making the issues at stake much more diffuse than the target question and allowing it to become a “stand” against the EU, to a greater or lesser extent. For the decision to have any validity, voter turnout must pass the 30% mark. With virtually all votes counted, it seems that turnout will be 32% (with a margin of error of 3% which may be very important) and 62% of voters have rejected the trade deal.
The Dutch PM, Mark Rutte, is clearly going to have a headache. His government has already endorsed the treaty, but if the vote was indeed quorate, he will be unable to simply ignore it; even if it is non-binding. Speaking after the vote, he noted: “We will have to wait and see but it is clear that the 'No' voters won convincingly. The question is whether or not the required turnout will be met. My view is that if the turnout is more than 30%, with such a victory for the 'No' camp, ratification cannot go ahead without discussion.”
Leading UK Eurosceptic, Nigel Farage of UKIP, opined that a Dutch “no” vote would strengthen those in the UK campaigning for “Brexit”, but the fact is that the matter has seen very scant coverage before the fact in the UK media and it is therefore largely irrelevant to that debate.
Whilst EU leaders at the national level are generally supportive of the EU and its single market and accept the concept of more harmonisation and greater cohesion (to a greater or lesser extent), it is abundantly clear that the EC does a very poor job of communicating the concepts, details and advantages to the people of Europe in whose names they act. If the EU is to have a long term future, this must change and the people of Europe must be fully informed an onside with, at the very least, the broad strokes of the European vision.