Dutch voters want a referendum on the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), throwing into doubt the future of the U.S.-EU free trade deal, nine days after the country`s `no` vote in a plebiscite on an EU-Ukraine association agreement, according to EurActiv.
”We want this to happen. We are in favour of a referendum on TTIP,” said Jasper Van Dijk, spokesman for the Socialist Party that is pushing for the voting, EurActiv reports.
Some 100,000 Dutch citizens have already signed a petition demanding a referendum on TTIP. 300,000 names are needed to trigger a non-binding vote on the issue, as was the case with the Ukraine plebiscite.
Van Dijk told EurActiv that the EU-Ukraine referendum had given the campaign, which has lasted a matter of months, added impetus.
EU and US negotiators are racing to finalise the controversial TTIP before US President Barack Obama steps down in January 2017.
Potential successors such as Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders have serious reservations about Free Trade Agreements such as TTIP.
But even if a deal is struck after four years of tough talks, the treaty must be ratified by the European Parliament, and each of the parliaments of the 28 member states of the EU, to finally come into force.
Yet at that point a Dutch referendum, even if like the one on Ukraine it is ”consultative” and non-binding, could heap huge pressure on Dutch MPs to ultimately quash the pact.
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