荷蘭首相宣佈辭職 內閣政府面臨倒臺危機

Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister, handed his resignation to the country’s Queen after European Union demands for austerity measures to bring Holland into line with euro spending rules caused the collapse of his government.

Early elections, as early as June 27, will become a popular vote on EU imposed austerity measures after the fall of a Dutch government that over the last year strongly backed the eurozone’s fiscal union treaty and urged that Greece be stripped of sovereignty for falling behind with spending cuts.

Mark Rutte, the Prime Minister, resigned after his fragile liberal-conservative coalition government, which has a no parliamentary majority, fell apart at the weekend after the far-right Freedom Party walked out of talks to implement £12 billion (15bn euros) in cuts. “The government now knows that it is no longer sufficiently assured of the necessary parliamentary support to do what is necessary for our national economy,” he admitted in his resignation letter to Queen Beatrix.

Diederik Samsom, the leader of the pro-European opposition Labour Party accused Mr Rutte of “dropping the ball at the worst possible moment” and demanded snap elections“We have to deliver clarity to the country as soon as possible,” he said.

The impasse in one of the euro’s last remaining countries to have a AAA credit rating comes as financial markets have been jolted by the prospect of an anti-austerity Socialist French president and as high Spanish banking debt threatens to reignite the EU single currency’s debt crisis.

The vote will call into question whether eurozone austerity policies that have triggered the fall of governments and the rise of technocratic administrations in “peripheral” southern Europe can even be enforced in “core” northern European countries such Holland and France.

The Dutch crisis came after Geert Wilders, the leader of the Freedom Party, withdrew support for Mr Rutte’s minority Liberal and Christian Democrat government, after accusing it of bowing to Brussels demands to “bleed” the people.

The decision by Mr Wilders, whose anti-Islam party has switched its focus to campaign against the EU, came as Dutch opinion polls on Sunday found that 57 per cent of voters are opposed to the cuts.

The European Commission repeated its demand for the Dutch government to submit measures to balance the budget in line with euro spending rules to Brussels within nine days.“The commission trusts that the Dutch government will continue to seek a budget solution,” said a spokesman. “Governments commit on behalf of states. Therefore commitments are not linked to one government. Governments change but commitments on behalf of states cannot be changed without discussion with European partners.”

【快訊】荷蘭政府信息署表示，首相馬克呂特已經結束與荷蘭女王貝婭特麗克絲的會面，女王表示接受首相及內閣的辭呈，同時要求馬克呂特繼續帶領內閣處理國家事務，直到新政府產生。

在經過長達七週的接觸後，關於削減政府預算赤字規模的談判在上週週末正式破裂，這也意味着現任荷蘭政府將不可能兌現以德國爲首的歐盟國家要求的，在歐元區實現更嚴格財政紀律和緊縮財政措施的承諾。這也是外界普遍認爲馬克呂特辭職的原因。

荷蘭政府一直是德國政府的關鍵盟友，同時也是希臘債務問題引爆歐元區主權債務危機以來，實施財政緊縮措施的最積極支持者。不過由於荷蘭國內經濟的低迷表現，在今年內出現國內經濟的萎縮局面的預期以及不斷擴大的預算赤字規模，也使得它有可能成爲歐元區經濟表現最差的國家之一。