“The Dutch referendum is a very strong signal for the UK that will hold in June an in/out referendum,” Wolfgang Gehrcke, who is on a trip to Moscow, said.
On Wednesday, two thirds of the Dutch people voted against the Netherlands government’s decision to ratify the EU-Ukraine association deal signed in 2014, according to preliminary referendum results. The same day, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that the Netherlands could reconsider the ratification of the EU-Ukraine association deal as the majority of the population says "no."
“The Dutch said the result would be taken into account, but the European Commission said it did not matter. So the UK will see Brussels being indifferent to the will of the Dutch people,” Gehrcke said.
Gehrcke said that the referendum means the agreement reached by Brussels and Kiev should be revised and new talks are needed.
“But I think that many European countries are not interested in a new agreement with Ukraine which is in fact bankrupt,” he said. “The EU should rethink its relations with Ukraine, and the Ukrainian government also should think twice about its relations with Europe.”
The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, establishing a political and economic association between Kiev and Brussels, was signed in 2014. It commits Kiev to implementing vast reforms in order to meet the bloc’s high economic, political, social, legal and technical criteria. It also grants Ukraine expanded access to the EU single market.
The Netherlands is the only member state yet to ratify the agreement. The Dutch government decided to hold a non-binding referendum after over 400,000 people signed a petition to put the matter to a nationwide vote.
