MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova — On Wednesday, 61.1 percent of Dutch voters rejected the EU-Ukraine association deal’s ratification in the advisory referendum, according to preliminary results. A turnout of 32.2 percent passed the 30-percent threshold to give the public vote legal weight, prompting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to admit Amsterdam could reconsider ratifying the association deal.
"It is against the interest of the EU to have one of its bloc-members a state such as Ukraine that is economically and politically on the verge of collapse, entirely corrupted, with oligarchs who are eager to get access to the EU," Marton Gyongyosi, the vice chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian National Assembly, said Tuesday commenting on the Dutch referendum results.
The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, establishing a political and economic association between Kiev and Brussels, was signed in 2014. 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.