Pie-thrower group gets EU vote subsidy

15 April 2005

AMSTERDAM — There was an angry reaction in political circles on Friday to the news that Leiden-based collective Eurodusnie has been granted a EUR 40,000 subsidy to campaign for a no vote in the Dutch referendum on the EU constitution.

Hans van Baalen, an MP for the Liberty Party (VVD), said on Friday that the Referendum Commission had made a “big mistake” by granting a subsidy to this group. He has called on the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of European Affairs to explain the decision.

“The commission must re-do its work because it only examined the project aims and not at the people behind [the group],” Van Baalen said.

“We don’t give subsidies to the Hells Angels or [right-wing] Lonsdale youth for a clubhouse,” he said. He called for the Referendum Commission to get information about the group from Leiden City Council and the state security service AIVD before reconsidering the subsidy request.

The subsidy application was submitted by EuroDusnie on behalf of anarchist group Vrijplaats Koppenhinksteeg, which plans to use the money for a festival of “debate and music” in Leiden in May.

Two members of the EuroDusnie anti-capitalist collective were involved in an incident on 14 March 2002 when pies were thrown at populist politician Pim Fortuyn. The cream pies were allegedly laced with urine. The people who threw the pies denied this.

Fortuyn was shot dead in Hilversum on 6 May 2002, nine days before the general election. Although some of his supporters suggested the two incidents were linked, no evidence of this was ever found.

Former EU commissioner Frits Bolkestein gets pied in 1999

The activist group was linked to pie-throwing attacks on former EU commissioner Frits Bolkestein and the Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm in 1999.

Fortuyn’s LPF party has also reacted angrily to EuroDusnie’s subsidy. LPF leader Gerard Van As said the world appeared to be turned on its head as “bad behaviour was once again being rewarded”.

He said it was “doubly-painful” because the group was linked to those responsible for the pie attack on Fortuyn, while the LPF was not getting any funding for its campaign against the EU Constitution.

Subject: Dutch news