"Over 60% said No to ratification of the
Association Agreement of Ukraine and the European Union. However, the
parliament has made the opposite decision," Valentina Matviyenko said.
MOSCOW, April 23. /TASS/. The situation in the Netherlands around the referendum on the EU association agreement with Ukraine discredits the very idea of referendums, Russia’s Federation Council upper parliamentary house Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Saturday.
"There is the recent referendum in Holland where over 60% said No to ratification of the Association Agreement of Ukraine and the European Union. However, the parliament has made the opposite decision," Matviyenko said in a televised interview in the Sunday ‘Pozdnyakov’ program. The NTV channel released some extracts of the interview on its website on Saturday.
"That discredits the very idea of
referendums," she said.
The Netherlands held the referendum on ratification of
the EU-Ukraine association agreement on April 6. About 2.5 million people, or
61% of Dutch voters, said No whereas 1.6 million, or 38.21%, backed the
agreement. The turnout was 32.28%, or slightly over the 30-percent threshold
needed for considering the vote to be valid. The referendum results are
non-binding on the government.
On April 19, the Dutch parliament turned down the
proposal to cancel ratification of the Ukraine-EU deal.
Source: ITAR_TASS 25-04-2016
