Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte resigns over austerity measures

04-23-2012 • http://www.telegraph.co.uk, By Bruno Waterfield

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.