Country profile - the Netherlands: The Netherlands and Britain are the first countries to vote in next week's European Parliament elections, going to the polls on Thursday. In The Hague last week, however, there was little sign of campaigning, with few posters to be seen apart from a few billboards for the Greens.
Only 45 per cent of the Dutch electorate is likely to vote next week, and polls suggest that European issues scarcely feature among voters' preoccupations. Crime, the environment and pensions are the biggest issues on voters' minds, and candidates have struggled to find a European dimension to such themes.
Mr Camiel Eurlings, the leading candidate for the Christian Democrats, the party of the Prime Minister, Mr Jan-Peter Balkenende, wants to close the "coffee shops", where soft drugs are available over the counter. Mr Eurlings thinks that the Dutch should abandon their image as "the drugs supermarket of Europe", and support a common EU drugs policy.
The Christian Democrats are expected to be the election's big losers, mainly on account of Mr Balkenende's unpopular economic policies.
The Social Democrats and the Greens are hoping to boost their vote by proposing a strict code of conduct for MEPs' expenses.
MEPs receive the full air fare to and from their home country, regardless of the actual cost of the ticket, but the Dutch leftists want all expenses audited and only paid against a receipt.
Since the last European Parliament elections in 1999, Dutch politics have endured their most turbulent period since the end of the second World War, climaxing in the assassination of right-wing populist Pim Fortuyn in May 2002. His party, called the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF), won 26 seats in the election that followed his death, and entered government with Mr Balkenende's Christian Democrats.
In-fighting and amateurism within the LPF led to the coalition's collapse within a few months, and the party disappeared as a political force in the election of January 2003.
Despite the death of Mr Fortuyn and the implosion of his party, the public anxieties that fuelled his rise remain potent in the Netherlands. They focus on immigration, notably the fear that Muslim immigrants could undermine liberal Dutch society.
The past few years have also seen a cooling in the traditional enthusiasm for European integration, although few prospective MEPs are overtly Eurosceptic. The Netherlands is among the countries that will hold a referendum on the constitutional treaty, and some analysts in Brussels believe that the Dutch will be the first to reject it.
Such a step would make Dutch membership of any European vanguard impossible.
For the moment, few Dutch voters appear to be concerned with such matters, and the soundest prediction for next week's result may be that it will reflect the national mood by punishing the governing Christian Democrats and rewarding the opposition Social Democrats.