With only three weeks left to a referendum in the Netherlands on Ukraine’s association agreement with the European Union, Ukraine is stepping up efforts for the uphill battle to win support of Dutch voters for the treaty.
But time is running out for Kyiv: Dutch Euro-skeptics, who are against the Ukraine-European Union trade and political agreeement are now in the lead: According to a poll conducted by Dutch polling company I&O Research, 57 percent of those who intend to vote in the April 6 referendum will vote “No.”
Young Ukrainians are now getting involved in supporting the Dutch “Yes” campaign — a group of students from Ukraine’s National Aviation University in Kyiv recently made an English-language video to try to persuade Dutch voters to back the Ukraine-EU agreement.
“We deserve to be with the European Union, and I think this video will have at least some influence on this referendum,” Valerie Malitska, the student who directed the address, told the Kyiv Post.
Young people were the main drivers of the EuroMaidan Revolution that drove President Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 21, 2014. The uprising was triggered by Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the political association and free trade agreement between Ukraine and the EU.
The milestone agreement was finally signed by post-revolution leaders in June 2014. Afterwards, the process of ratification by the 28 EU member states started.
The Dutch parliament has already approved the free trade agreement. But Dutch Euro-skeptic activists last year managed to collect over 300,000 signatures online to trigger a referendum to ask citizens if they are “for or against the Approval Act of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine.”
The referendum will be valid if turnout exceeds 30 percent.
If the majority votes “No,” the entry of association agreement into force will be suspended until the Dutch parliament passes another law either repealing ratification of the treaty or confirming it.
Continental crisis
Dutch Euro-skeptics fear the EU’s free trade agreement with Kyiv could become a step towards further EU expansion.
However, the Dutch government insists the agreement does not guarantee Ukraine admission to the union — although this is a long-term goal of Kyiv.
Moreover against the backdrop of a crisis in Europe over a flood of refugees from war-torn Syria, many Dutch people are also against granting a visa-free regime to Ukraine, which is in a conflict with Russia.
Even though the referendum will only have an advisory character, its results are a crucial test for both the EU and Ukraine.
“We’re working for victory in the Netherlands,” Dmytro Kuleba, ambassador-at-large at Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, told journalists in Kyiv on March 17.
He said that although the “No” campaign is in the lead, the last three weeks before the referendum would be the most intense and critical for the “Yes” camp.
Kyiv is supporting the “Yes” vote with pro-Ukrainian promotional materials, holding discussions, and sponsoring Ukrainian cinema days in the Netherlands. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin is to attend a Ukrainian-Dutch business forum in the Dutch town of Nootdorp on March 30.
“The results of the referendum will be important from a political perspective, but it will not stop the process of Ukraine’s European integration,” Kuleba said.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in an interview with Dutch daily evening newspaper NRC Handelsblad on Jan 9, warned that a Euro-skeptics’ victory in the Dutch referendum would lead to a “continental crisis.”
“Russia would pluck the fruits of an easy victory,” Juncker said.
Shame to vote ‘No’
After 14 years of working in Ukraine, businessmen Karel and Pieter Kinds, the CEO and director respectively of freight audit and transport management solutions company ControlPay, say “it will be a big shame if Netherlands says ‘no, we don’t want to let Ukraine into the European way of working.’”
The Euro-skeptic organizers of the referendum “are abusing the association treaty to oppose the EU, and misusing Ukraine for it,” Pieter Kinds said in an interview with the Kyiv Post.
The businessmen say most of their compatriots know little about Ukraine, which rarely makes it into the Dutch news.
“When a group of ‘No’ voters says something (about Ukraine), people believe it, because they don’t know anything (about Ukraine), they have no answers to it,” Pieter Kinds said.
He said it was difficult to convince Dutch people that Ukraine is “a friendly country with a friendly people” when it only get negative coverage in the Dutch news because of mass protests and corruption scandals.
“The biggest problem is the MH17 (tragedy). Ukraine got into the news in a negative way. It’s not the fault of Ukraine, but the plane came down in Ukraine,” Kinds said.
Of the 298 people who died when Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down by a powerful Buk missile over Russian proxy force-held territory in eastern Ukraine in July 2014, 193 were Dutch citizens.
The Kinds, who employ 140 people in Ukraine, also say the new free trade agreement is not helping their business much, as their company does not export goods. But generally, the treaty makes doing business in Ukraine easier, which benefits both Europeans and Ukrainians, they say.
Though believing that the referendum is unnecessary, Pieter Kinds says that the initiative actually offers a unique opportunity to the Netherlands.
“I think that if there is a ‘Yes’ vote, then it will be a very good statement for Ukrainians, but also for Russia – like ‘you don’t have any chance in Europe, because we’ve voted for this,’” Kinds said. “And Ukrainians deserve a better future.”
The video address by the students of the National Aviation University can be found here:
Another video, by Ukraine’s LGBT community, in support of the ‘Yes’ campaign in the Netherlands can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfHs1FlJRgI
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Savchuk can be reached at [email protected]
