Tuesday, February 21, 2017

WILL NEXIT FOLLOW BREXIT?

by Bob Walsh

There will be important parliamentary elections in the Netherlands in slightly less than four weeks. A fellow named Geert Wilders is dominant in the polling and he is strongly nationalistic-isolationist and is pushing for an exit from the E.U. (The Netherlands is one of the founding members of the European Union. That country became rich and powerful on international trade going back hundreds of years.)

Few serious analysts think the Dutch will bail on the E.U. Then again, few thought that the U.K. would do so.

The Dutch port at Rotterdam is one of the largest and busiest in the world. There are something like 180,000 jobs in that country linked closely to the operations of that port and traffic would without a doubt suffer at least to some extent if they bailed out.

There have been over the last 12 years two popular votes in the Netherlands about exiting the E.U. The question was voted down both times.

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