Anti-Ukraine treaty group sets its sights on Dutch political parties

One of the driving forces behind this April’s referendum on the EU treaty with Ukraine has launched a campaign against political parties which it says are ignoring the result.

Campaign group GeenPeil, which is related to shockblog GeenStijl, says the government is taking too long to decide what to do about the no vote and is launching a ‘spring offensive’ ahead of the March general election.

It now wants to convince people not to vote for the ruling VVD and PvdA or other parties which it considers ‘complicit’ in ignoring the outcome of the vote and are therefore ‘traitors to democracy’.

The government has had 202 days since the vote to decide what to do and its failure to abide by the vote and reject the treaty is ‘administrative arrogance,’ the campaign group says.

Separate declaration

On Monday prime minister Mark Rutte said he is working on getting approval for a separate Dutch declaration which would outline the Dutch position on the treaty and allow for its full ratification at the same time. That process is set to take several more weeks.

The turnout in the referendum was 32%, which made the vote legally binding. Although the result is only officially advisory, the government has said that it wants to ‘do justice’ to the result.

Meanwhile, two prominent supporters of the ‘no’ vote are now involved in political parties themselves.

Jan Roos, who was one of the leading lights of GeenStijl is to lead splinter political party VNL (Voor Nederland) into the March general election. And Thierry Baudet, a right-wing philosopher and eurosceptic, whose Forum voor Democratie also campaigned against the Ukraine treaty, has said he will fight for a seat in parliament in the general election.