Netherlands calls for amending the Ukraine-EU agreement

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the summit in Brussels continued to insist on changing the conditions for ratifying the Association Agreement with Ukraine. The Netherlands will not sign it if the interests of the Dutch are not taken into account, 61 percent of whom voted in a referendum against the agreement.

Although the result of the referendum is not binding, the citizens insist that the Rutte government, under their pressure, should not sign the agreement. This happened shortly before the referendum on UK membership in the EU, and local European critics felt a tailwind.


Rutte, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, wants to negotiate with other EU states to amend the association agreements to satisfy Eurosceptics in his country. Many Dutch people used the referendum to express their general discontent with the European Union.

European Council President Donald Tusk assured that the EU will do everything to find a legal solution that would allow Rutte to ratify the treaty, explaining that “the potential for exports from Ukraine, at best, can only be provided by Ukrainian agriculture, but this the EU sector includes strict quotas ”. “The Association Agreement itself does not pose any real threat to the Dutch,” he explained.