The First Dutch Referendum: A pre-Ballot Assessment

On June 1st, three days after the French referendum, the Dutch will also vote on the European Constitution. It will be the first national referendum in modern Dutch history. The Dutch have only had some 100 local referendums during the 20th century, so their experience is meagre.

This paper explains the background to the Dutch referendum – the general political climate and the attitude towards European integration – and describes and analyzes the current referendum debate on the European Constitution. However, at the moment of writing the real campaign by the government, political parties and NGOs has only just begun. This makes an attempt to analyze the campaign at this moment somewhat difficult.