The Dutch are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Europen Union with 47% wanting limits on EU powers and 21% saying they would prefer to leave the organisation altogether, the Volkskrant reports on Monday.

Among the EU as a whole, 53% think the organisation should have fewer powers or that their countries should withdraw, an Ipsos poll due to be published on Tuesday will say.

The research was carried out in early February and involved 7,000 people in nine EU countries. Parliament is due to debate the future of the EU with ministers later on Monday.

Bernard Wientjes, head of the employers’ organisation VNO-NCW said politicians should be doing a better job of explaining how useful the EU is to the ‘man in the street’.

That message, he said, is currently only clear to the better educated and the ‘elite’. The ‘deep, uneasy feeling about Europe’ which ordinary voters have needs to be taken away, Wientjes told the Volkskrant.

Elections for a new European parliament will be held on May 22.

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