MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders, said the Netherlands would only be able to improve its relations and restore trade with Russia by leaving the European Union, which would enable the country to opt out of the anti-Russia sanctions imposed by Brussels on the pretext of the conflict in Ukraine.
"We strongly support Dutch EU-membership. For a trade-oriented nation like ourselves, even the suggestion to leave the largest single market and largest trading bloc in the history of the world is simply insane and anti-Dutch. We will passionately make this argument to the Dutch people," Tim Versnel said, adding that his party, led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, will never support a referendum on the Netherlands' membership of the European Union.
In the interview published in the Russian Izvestia newspaper on Friday, Wilders also said that lifting the anti-Russian sanctions was "a mandatory condition for our positive future." Versnel refuted this claim, saying that "the damage to the Dutch economy from the sanctions has been negligible," and therefore lifting them would not significantly benefit the country's economy.
According to Ron van Dartel, the Dutch ambassador to Russia, the introduction of anti-Russia sanctions by the European Union in 2014 resulted in Dutch exports to Russia decreasing by one third and imports from Russia falling by about a quarter.
