We know now that nearly two-thirds of the Dutch citizens (63.3%) who bothered to cast their vote at the referendum on the EU-Constitution (again nearly two thirds of the electorate, 61.5%) voted against ratification of the treaty. Ivo Hartman argues that it is difficult to know why people voted no since there where as many reasons as votes. He hopes that at even though the referendum turned out negative, European politics and citizenship will stay on the agenda for a while.
The Dutch said NO, but why?
We know now that nearly two-thirds of the Dutch citizens (63.3%) who bothered to cast their vote at the referendum on the EU-Constitution (again nearly two thirds of the electorate, 61.5%) voted against ratification of the treaty.
But why?
Some commentators see a parallel with the revolt of the Dutch voters in 2001/2002, when the populist movement of Fortuyn caused fear and loss among the traditional parties. The parallel lies in the repression of public debate on the problems of immigration, multiculturalism and Islam, the main factor in the rising of the Fortuyn-movement respectively the neglect of public debate on the changes and chances, the profits and failures of the European Union for the Netherlands (the Dutch as the biggest net-taxpayers to the European Union, the introduction of the Euro, the EU-enlargement, Turkey).
Pattern
The political pattern of the NO-vote resembled the situation in France. The NO-campaign was led by the extreme right (orthodox Protestant-Christian parties, nationalists and xenophobes) and the extreme left (the former Maoist, now Socialist Party). Friend and foe agreed that the YES-campaign started far too late, suffered from counterproductive demagogy (especially by several members of goverment) and was damaged by the public image that the government used an enormous amount of tax-money for the YES-campaign while the NO-camp hardly received any public money. The Dutch situation differed from the French in that the discontent with domestic political and socio-economic state of affairs, hardly less disastrous than in France, played a less dominant role in the debate. In that respect the government-campaign succeeded. The message came through that ‘this is a referendum about the European Union, not about the popularity of this government.
Consensus
For many the public debate in the weeks before the referendum looked like a festival of demagogy, populism, inconsistent and contradictory reasoning, non-sequiturs and irrelevancy. The first national referendum showed that the Dutch, different from the French again, are not used to sharp public debate. The Dutch, with their penchant for consensus, are badly equipped for political controversies that split society. In discussions on the results of the referendum, politicians from nearly all parties argued nevertheless that they applauded the lively debate in the weeks before the referendum and the high turn-out. Some of them promised to take the initiative for a referendum bill, which would make referenda on citizen initiatives possible.
Contradictions
One of the problems for Dutch politicians is to read the message of the voters. What can you do with this bag of contradictory arguments and conflicting emotions? Complaints that ‘The European Union favours economic liberalism and endangers our social achievements,’ are followed in one breath with complaints that ‘Brussels regulates far too much; the European Union will be – or is already – a bureaucratic superstate.’ From the conviction that ‘The European Union is not a democracy; the European Parliament has far too little power,’ people conclude that ‘We should stop transferring sovereignty to the European Union because it undermines the powers of our own government and Parliament.’ ‘A vote for the constitution is a vote for cruelty against animals because bull fighting and forced feeding of geese are permitted as national cultural traditions,’ people say, but ‘Brussels should not interfere with Dutch achievements such as our liberal drugs policy.’ And so forth and so on.
Momentum
The second problem, especially for those involved in political education and the quality of public debate, is how to keep the momentum the interest in EU-politics has gained as a positive result of this referendum. How can we avoid that within a few weeks – with summer holidays at the horizon – the European Union is the same complex, dull and hardly relevant for every day life topic it used to be three months ago? Apparently, the odds are against us in this matter. To begin with, the Dutch government seems to have run out of financial means for European citizenship education, since all relevant available finances have been spent on the YES-campaign .
Ivo Hartman, Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, Amsterdam
This article was published in Politeia Newsletter 38 - July 2005