The Dutch government rejected mounting calls for a referendum on Europe’s new reform treaty on Friday night, two years after Dutch voters killed off the European constitution in a referendum that stunned the European Union.
After a Cabinet meeting on Friday of the coalition of Christian and Social Democrats, the Christian Democrat Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, announced that a second referendum was not needed on the grounds that the new treaty was not a constitution and that Dutch concerns had been assuaged in the treaty negotiations this year.
But Balkenende’s determination to avoid another referendum after the fiasco he faced two years ago could still fall foul of Parliament in The Hague, where three small parties are demanding a popular vote on the treaty that is supposed to be agreed by the 27 EU governments next month.
A decision to stage a referendum in The Netherlands would complicate British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s attempts to avoid a national vote on the treaty. Downing Street has been put on the defensive by demands for a referendum from the trade unions, a Tory campaign, calls from the right-wing press and the danger of a Labour backbench revolt.
Despite Friday’s decision in The Hague, the Dutch coalition is split. Whereas the prime minister is fiercely opposed, his centre-left partner fought an election last year pledging a referendum.
Senior Dutch Labour figures support a vote. Jan Pronk, expected to be made Labour chairperson next week, is backing a plebiscite, as is the party’s caucus leader in Parliament, Jacques Tichelaar.
Of the three parties demanding the referendum in Parliament, two are solidly pro-EU and one is strongly Eurosceptic. If Labour voted with them as well as the pro-referendum conservative PVV, they would muster a majority and rout Balkenende.
Last week, a government advisory body, the Council of State, told the Cabinet that a referendum was not needed since the new treaty, unlike its ill-fated predecessor, was not a constitution. Balkenende said he would be steered by the council’s advice.
But the scenario of 2005 could still be repeated. The Dutch voted by almost two to one to kill off the constitution and spared British prime minister Tony Blair the need to hold a referendum in Britain. Balkenende opposed a referendum on that occasion too, but lost in Parliament.
The reform treaty was drafted this year under German leadership in response to the crisis triggered by the Dutch and French ”no” votes two years ago. An EU summit next month in Portugal is meant to endorse the treaty, which then has to be ratified.
Like Brown, Balkenende hopes to restrict the ratification process to Parliament. If the Dutch leader is forced to call a referendum, the pressure will mount on Brown to follow suit and there will probably be demands for a public vote elsewhere in the EU — in Denmark, for example.
That could spell a death sentence for the treaty, even if the Dutch government is confident it could win a referendum if necessary. — Guardian Unlimited Â