Ukrainians in the Netherlands react to the Dutch no vote

Last week the Dutch took part in a referendum on the treaty of association between the EU and Ukraine. Just under one third of the electorate bothered to vote, but those who did voted 62% to 38% against the treaty. Graham Dockery spoke to two Ukrainians in the Netherlands about the result.

‘If I could have voted, I would have voted no,’ Anna stated bluntly. ‘Ukraine has to deal with its own problems first before getting into any kind of union. Ukrainians f****d up their own country like barbarians and now they wonder why people won’t accept them into the union? There’s a lot of double standards here.’ Anna (24) is a Ukrainian student living in Amsterdam. She came to the Netherlands three years ago from Donetsk, one of the regions hit hardest by the country’s ongoing civil war.