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.”

【新聞快訊】荷蘭政府信息署表示，首相馬克呂特已經(jīng)結(jié)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(nèi)閣的辭呈，同時要求馬克呂特繼續(xù)帶領(lǐng)內(nèi)閣處理國家事務(wù)，直到新政府產(chǎn)生。

在經(jīng)過長達(dá)七周的接觸后，關(guān)于削減政府預(yù)算赤字規(guī)模的談判在上周周末正式破裂，這也意味著現(xiàn)任荷蘭政府將不可能兌現(xiàn)以德國為首的歐盟國家要求的，在歐元區(qū)實(shí)現(xiàn)更嚴(yán)格財政紀(jì)律和緊縮財政措施的承諾。這也是外界普遍認(rèn)為馬克呂特辭職的原因。

荷蘭政府一直是德國政府的關(guān)鍵盟友，同時也是希臘債務(wù)問題引爆歐元區(qū)主權(quán)債務(wù)危機(jī)以來，實(shí)施財政緊縮措施的最積極支持者。不過由于荷蘭國內(nèi)經(jīng)濟(jì)的低迷表現(xiàn)，在今年內(nèi)出現(xiàn)國內(nèi)經(jīng)濟(jì)的萎縮局面的預(yù)期以及不斷擴(kuò)大的預(yù)算赤字規(guī)模，也使得它有可能成為歐元區(qū)經(jīng)濟(jì)表現(xiàn)最差的國家之一。