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Europe dominates Dutch elections

30 August 2012, 10:37 CET
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(THE HAGUE) - Questions of who rules in the European Union and whether to aid eurozone partners to get out of the debt crisis are the dominant issues in the campaign for next month's Dutch elections.

"Voters demand clarity on to what extent eurocrats determine what's going on in their country and to what extent we can determine that ourselves," Andre Krouwel, a political scientist at Amsterdam's Free University, told AFP.

"Is a country's budget determined in Brussels or in The Hague, in Berlin or in Paris?" he added, as the country gears up for September 12 parliamentary polls -- the second in two years.

The Dutch are voting after the failure of talks in April on how next year's public deficit should be slashed to below the eurozone's limit of three percent of gross domestic product brought down the government.

Far-right leader Geert Wilders, whose Freedom Party (PVV) had been lending its support to Prime Minister Mark Rutte's minority centre-right coalition, walked out of the talks.

Wilders refused to agree to proposed austerity measures which he said were "dictated from Brussels" and wants the Netherlands to leave the eurozone altogether to go back to the guilder.

"The Netherlands itself is also wondering whether we really should continue to help southern Europe's struggling countries," added Philip van Praag, a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam.

A tougher take on Europe

Cuurent opinion polls put Rutte's liberal business-friendly People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) neck-and-neck with the decidely eurosceptic far-left Socialist Party (SP).

The SP wants a referendum every time a decision on Europe needs to be taken with regard to the transfer of power to the EU and the "Brussels technocrats."

"Europe must do again what it was meant to do: cooperate," said SP leader Emile Roemer during a debate televised on national television.

But he added: "That's completely different from being bossed from Brussels."

Where Rutte advocates austerity, forcing the deficit back to below the three percent ceiling next year, the SP has a different take.

The Socialists plan to pump three billion euros ($3.7 billion) back into the economy in 2013 to stimulate jobs and growth. They promise to get the deficit below the EU ceiling only by 2015.

Roemer said in the meantime the country would refuse to pay fines imposed on it by Brussels should the Netherlands fail to meet the target.

Driven by public opinion increasingly hostile to giving aid to Greece and by the more eurosceptic fringe of his own party, Rutte too has hardened his own tone towards Brussels, Van Praag said.

Though he continues to advocate a European market and a "strong" currency, Rutte says he is against the transfer of more power to Brussels and new plans for extra aid to Greece.

Among the other major contenders in the election, only the Labour Party (PvdA) is open to further European integration.

"To solve the eurocrisis, we are going to have to share more power than we are really comfortable with," Labour leader Diederik Samsom said.

An opinion poll released Tuesday by the Ipsos Synovate polling agency gives Rutte's VVD 34 seats in the 150-seat Lower House (as opposed to 31 in 2010), the Socialist Party 30 seats (15 in 2010), Labour 22 (30 in 2010) and Wilders' far-right 19 (24 in 2010).

Another opinion poll released by polling agency Maurice de Hond on Sunday said the SP would garner 35 seats, the VVD 32, the PvdA 18, with the same number also going to the far-right.


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