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.”

【新闻快讯】荷兰政府信息署表示，首相马克吕特已经结束与荷兰女王贝娅特丽克丝的会面，女王表示接受首相及内阁的辞呈，同时要求马克吕特继续带领内阁处理国家事务，直到府产生。

在经过长达七周的接触后，关于削减政府预算赤字规模的谈判在上周周末正式破裂，这也意味着现任荷兰政府将不可能兑现以德国为首的欧盟国家要求的，在欧元区实现更严格财政纪律和紧缩财政措施的承诺。这也是外界普遍认为马克吕特辞职的原因。

荷兰政府一直是德国政府的关键盟友，同时也是希腊债务问题引爆欧元区主权债务危机以来，实施财政紧缩措施的最积极支持者。不过由于荷兰国内经济的低迷表现，在今年内出现国内经济的萎缩局面的预期以及不断扩大的预算赤字规模，也使得它有可能成为欧元区经济表现最差的国家之一。

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