Referendums in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, bills are generally submitted by the Government, but also individual members of the House of Representatives have the right to introduce bills. In 2005, Members of Parliament Niesco Dubbelboer (Labour), Wijnand Duyvendak (GreenLeft) and Boris van der Ham (Democrats 66) introduced the bill that would become the Advisory Referendum Act. Its accompanying explanatory memorandum started with a quote of former US president Theodore Roosevelt: "I believe in the [...] referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative."[2] The bill's initial sponsors were succeeded by Paul Kalma (Labour),[3] Femke Halsema (GreenLeft), Pierre Heijnen (Labour), Jolande Sap (GreenLeft),[4] Linda Voortman (GreenLeft),[5] Gerard Schouw (Democrats 66) and Manon Fokke (Labour)[6] before it was adopted by both chambers.

The bill passed the House of Representatives on 14 February 2013 with 98 votes in favour and 52 against. All parties except the coalition party People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and the three Christian parties – Christian Democratic Appeal, ChristianUnion and the Reformed Political Party – voted in favour.[7] In the Senate, the opposing votes came from the same four parties and the bill passed with 45 votes in favour and 30 against.[8] It was signed into law on 30 September 2014 and entered into force on 1 July 2015.

In 2018 however, both the assembly and senate voted to repeal the referendum law[9]

Under the Advisory Referendum Act, a referendum could be requested for any piece of primary legislation, including treaty ratifications, after it was signed into law and published in the Staatscourant, but generally before it enters into force (subject to exceptions). The law excluded several subjects, such as laws concerning: the monarchy or royal family, the national budget, constitutional amendments, legislation passed solely for the execution of treaties or decisions of intergovernmental organisations, Kingdom acts (unless they will solely apply to the Netherlands) and legislation passed in response to a previous referendum.[10]

The request procedure of a referendum consisted of two stages. For the preliminary request, 10,000 requests had to be received within four weeks after proclamation of the law. Upon completion of this stage, the provisions concerning entry into force of the law in question were suspended until the procedure has come to an end. For the definitive request, 300,000 requests had to be received within six weeks after the completion of the preliminary request. If this was not successful, the 30% turnout had not been met or the law is approved, then the law could enter into effect by royal decree. If the law was rejected, then the suspension is indefinite and a follow-up law must be enacted that either repeals the law or overrides the suspended provisions to let the law enter into force after all.

A referendum commission was appointed by the government every four years. The commission decided the referendum date and question, subsidies for campaigns ("for" as well as "against") and gave neutral information on the referendum question. On 1 October 2015 the first referendum commission was installed. It was chaired by Medy van der Laan, and further consisted of A.B. Blomberg, Willemien Den Ouden, Ruud Koole and Reint Jan Renes.[11]

The Advisory Referendum Act has been criticised for its turnout requirement. Senior lecturer Casper Albers from the University of Groningen argued that the requirement would lead to an "${\displaystyle N}$ player" variant of the prisoner's dilemma. Due to the turnout requirement, proponents can choose whether to vote to achieve the desired outcome, whereas opponents must vote. This consideration can affect the outcome if proponents contribute decisively to the turnout and a majority votes against.[12]

In the run-up to the Ukraine–EU Association Agreement referendum in 2016, some analysts estimated that the turnout would be around 30%, expressing doubt that the requirement would be met.[13][14] The referendum had a turnout of 32.28% with a majority of 61% against.[15] Minister of the Interior Ronald Plasterk committed to an evaluation of the Act.[16]

As of October 2017, two acts have received enough preliminary requests (>10,000) to move to the definitive request stage. For one act sufficient definitive requests were obtained (>300,000) for a referendum. A list of acts for which more than 50 preliminary requests were received is shown below.

Before 2015, there was no permanent provision in law for a referendum. However, from 2002 until 2005, a Temporary Referendum Act in place, which allowed for non-binding referendums, known in Dutch as volksraadpleging ("people's consultation"), to be organised for laws already approved by the House of Representatives. No referendum was called based on this law.

In order to hold the 2005 referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, a different law was temporarily put in place. That referendum was the first national referendum in the Netherlands since the 1805 referendum in the Batavian Republic, and it was the result of an initiative proposal by parliamentarians Farah Karimi (GreenLeft), Niesco Dubbelboer (Labour) and Boris van der Ham (Democrats 66), who also initiated the Consultative Referendum Act.