Guus Bosman

Quite surprisingly the new government did something I agree with: they've cancelled the (temporary) referendum law.

There was going to be a change in the constitution that would allow a referendum to be held among Dutch citizens. In preparation of that there was a temporary law put in place by the previous government, and this one has been cancelled.

I'm quite happy with that. I believe a government is elected because it has a whole package of ideas and measures, you can't just take one single decision seperate from other measures. A government is exactly there to balance things, and this balance would be disturbed with a referendum. A quote that summarizes this: "a referendum would probably show that the majority of citizens wants to abandon nuclear weapons, and at the same time that they want a nuclear bom to be dropped on Al Qaeda."


The political party D66, which considers a referendum to be a good thing, is now thinking about trying to organize a referendum on whether or not to abandon referendums.