News item | 17-10-2025 | 18:47
The government has taken the first steps towards an implementation law that makes the binding corrective referendum possible. This gives citizens more influence on politics and allows them to oppose political decisions. Minister Rijkaart of the Interior and Kingdom Relations outlines in a letter to the House of Representatives what the law will look like in broad terms.
At the beginning of 2025, the House of Representatives decided that the binding corrective referendum should become possible by amending the Constitution. The Senate is now considering this question. Ultimately, it is up to the cabinet to draw up an implementing law for this.
Minister Rijkaart: “With this outline letter we outline how we want to put this into practice, with the aim of Dutch people having more influence on new legislation. The corrective referendum is an important instrument with which people can let us know whether they are for or against a bill that has already been adopted by the House of Representatives and the Senate. At the same time, we must ensure that this can be done thoroughly, to prevent us from resorting to this tool too easily.”
Thresholds for organization and outcome
In the letter, the government outlines various choices that it expects to make for the implementation law. One of the choices concerns the required number of people who can request a referendum.
To do this, 5,000 people must first submit a request to organize a referendum. If this is successful, the final request must be supported by 400,000 people within 8 weeks for the referendum to actually take place.
The government is therefore in line with the advice of the State Committee on the Parliamentary System and this number is a good balance between ‘not too light’ and ‘not practically impossible’.
Another choice concerns when the referendum result is valid. A so-called outcome threshold applies to this. The outcome threshold is that the (‘winning’) majority must also be able to gather a predetermined number of votes. For the national referendum, the government states that this must be 33.33% of all voters. This percentage ensures a balance between representativeness and feasibility of the referendum.
The cabinet will make a decision on the outcome threshold for decentralized referenda later, in consultation with umbrella organizations such as the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG).
Agreements about frequency
Feasibility has also been considered, with the frequency of organizing referendums as an important point of attention. The government has discussed this with partners such as the Electoral Council and the Dutch Association for Civil Affairs and has adopted their advice. This means that the law makes it possible to combine votes, in the context of efficiency and cost savings. At the same time, taxes for municipalities and substantive influence must be taken into account, because the subject of a referendum can closely relate to election themes. Therefore, two exceptions have been made. For example, a maximum of four referendums can take place simultaneously and a national referendum never coincides with provincial council and water board elections, because these are already combined elections. This sometimes also involves several water boards per province.