According to an article in the Financial Times on 9 December, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has announced that the Netherlands will not ratify the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine if it does not obtain legally binding guarantees on defence and accession issues, at the European Council on 15 December.
These guarantees would enable a response to Dutch fears about this association agreement, which were expressed in a non-binding referendum on 16 April (see EUROPE 11527).
Rutte would thus like it clearly stated in a binding document (see EUROPE 11658) that the association agreement will not create a guarantee of defence for Ukraine, nor will it be a step towards Ukraine's eventual membership of the EU. "If we do not get this we will put a law to parliament the next day [after the summit], which will state that we will not ratify the association agreement", Rutte told the FT. He stated that he was not asking for an opt-out for the Netherlands. "I am asking for quite a lot (...) [But] what I am not asking for is re-ratification", he said.
All the EU member states (apart from the Netherlands), the European Parliament and Ukraine have ratified the association agreement. The issue of Dutch ratification and the options possible to bring this ratification about were the subject of a discussion at the European Council on 20-21 October (see EUROPE 11652). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)