Dutch Think Tank to Take Gov’t to Court to Oppose EU ‘Compromise’ on Ukraine

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Dutch Eurosceptic think tank Forum for Democracy is taking the country’s government to court demanding to either withdraw from the ratification of the EU-Ukraine association deal or move ahead with the agreement in its original version without a “compromise” with the European Union, assuring that the deal is not a precursor to Kiev's membership in the bloc, the think tank’s head Thierry Baudet said Friday.

The Netherlands remains the only EU member state that has not ratified the treaty. Prime Minister Mark Rutte moved to accelerate the ratification after securing support of the 27 European leaders for a supplementary to the deal that stated that the deal “does not confer on Ukraine the status of a candidate country for accession to the Union” and ruled out military or financial support to Kiev to mitigate Dutch voters' concerns.

“There is no room for amendments, there is no compromise possible,” Baudet said as quoted by the DutchNews.nl news portal citing the NRC newspaper, adding that the think tank wanted to “cut off the mountain path” the government was using.

The deal between Ukraine and the European Union, signed in 2014 and supposed to deepen political, economic and trade links, was initially approved by the Dutch Parliament. However, in April Dutch voters held a referendum on the issue and rejected the agreement by 61 percent of votes. Despite low voters' turnout and non-binding nature of the referendum, most Dutch parties agreed to abide by the outcome.

Last month, Rutte told RIA Novosti that the Dutch parliament would consider the ratification of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in January.