Daniel Hannan lets rip:

…[Holland’s] Mr Wilders was wrong to oppose the budget. All Western countries, including the Netherlands, need to deal with the happy problem of increasing longevity. His walk-out, however, should be seen in context. The Netherlands is just one of five big budget contributors in the eurozone – along with Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Finland. Taxpayers from these countries are being asked, in effect, to bail out governments that have been less prudent than their own. Many Dutch voters believe that they are being asked to retire later so that Italians can retire earlier: robbing Pieter to pay Paolo.
Their resentment is heightened by the EU’s profligacy. While it preaches austerity to the 27 member states, the European Commission unblushingly demands a 7 per cent increase in its own budget. There was a time, not long ago, when Brussels waste and sleaze went unreported by the Europhile Dutch media, but the internet has changed all that. Our sundered kindred are starting to see the EU as we see it, and to become angry.
Heaven knows they have plenty to be angry about. Since the crisis struck four years ago, Europe’s leaders have been concerned with preserving the single currency rather than with maximising the prosperity of the people who use it. It is now clear to almost everyone that the euro is a recessionary mechanism. It is causing deflation and emigration in the southern states, and threatens massive tax rises in the north….
The euro – or, rather, the determination of Europe’s leaders to keep it – is not only causing preventable destitution; it is vitiating democracy…

Amen, mostly: I’m not so sure that Wilders was wrong in opposing the budget cut (or at least their timing), but Hannan is spot on about the context of what Wilders is doing (well, you should throw in some opportunism too . . .). Note too the point about emigration. There is increasing concern that Europe’s periphery (you hear it in the Baltics too, where the issue is even more sensitive) is losing its best and its brightest. As for that whole “vitiating democracy” thing that Hannan correctly identifies. That was, of course, the whole idea . . .