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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. | 
