Dutch Ukraine vote tests strength of anti-EU mood

AMSTERDAM: Dutch voters cast ballots in a referendum on Wednesday on the European Union’s treaty with Ukraine, providing a gauge of anti-EU sentiment weeks before Britain puts its membership of the bloc on the line.

Launched by eurosceptic groups, the referendum -- whose result is not binding on the government -- is the first since a 2015 law made it possible to force through plebiscites by gathering 300,000 signatures on the Internet.

While the scope of a ballot expected to deliver a "No" vote is limited to a treaty to bring Ukraine and the EU closer, Prime Minister Mark Rutte acknowledged on Wednesday that some viewed it as a proxy for a broader debate on the way the bloc is being run. "It’s not about accession to the European Union, as some of the ‘against’ voters are saying," he told journalists after casting his vote.

"It’s not about collective defence, it is not about new money, it’s not about free movement of employees."

With one pollster saying turnout for the ballot looked likely to drop below the minimum validity threshold, populist eurosceptic leader Geert Wilders urged voters to send a message to Europe by saying "No".

"I think many Dutchmen are fed up with more European Union and this treaty with Ukraine that is not in the interests of the Dutch people," he told journalists.

"I hope that later, both in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, other countries will follow." Whatever voters’ motivation, a clear vote against the treaty in the run-up to Britain’s June 23 referendum on whether to quit the EU could escalate into a domestic or even a Europe-wide political crisis.