AMSTERDAM: A majority of Dutch wish the country had stuck with its old currency, the guilder, a poll published on Sunday showed, reflecting deep misgivings over the single currency bloc.
Dutch taxpayers have grown increasingly resentful of the high cost of bailing out the euro zone's more profligate members, with recent opinion polls showing that they are pessimistic about the prospects for the single currency zone, and fear Italy or Spain would be next in line for a bailout.
Following a tumultuous week in which Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou first announced and then ditched a plan for a referendum on a euro zone bailout package, leading to another political crisis for Greece, a poll found that 58 percent of Dutch wished they had stuck with the guilder, up from 51 percent in May.
Polling agency Maurice de Hond also found that 52 percent of those surveyed thought Greece should quit the euro.
When asked what they thought would happen to Greece, 60 percent said they expected it would eventually receive aid but that it would not repay the bulk of the money, and 69 percent said Greece would not deliver on the measures it had promised to carry out.
The euro zone crisis has become a potential flashpoint for the Dutch minority coalition government, which has had to rely on pro-European opposition parties in the past to muster enough support for bailouts.
But the parliament has grown increasingly critical of the high cost of the euro zone bailouts and failure to stem the euro zone crisis, mindful of the public's growing resentment, and the biggest opposition party, Labour, has grown far more critical of euro zone policies.
The fiscally conservative Netherlands has been among the more demanding euro zone countries in the bailout debate, insisting on private sector and IMF involvement, and pushing for the appointment of a powerful "budget czar" who would keep euro zone members in line or boot them out of the single currency if they failed to enforce the necessary economic discipline.
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