ON JUNE 21st the Dutch government released a long-awaited list of 54 powers it wants to remain at the national level rather than be assumed by the European Union (EU), the most significant official step yet in the country’s gradual shift to a more sceptical stance on European integration. In an accompanying letter, the Netherlands’ foreign minister, Frans Timmermans (pictured), lists a series of policy areas where further European cooperation is crucial such as financial regulation, energy, climate change and migration. Then he notes: “However, the cabinet is convinced that the time of an ‘ever closer union’ in every possible policy area is behind us.” That phrase, “an ever closer union”, is in the first sentence of the preamble to the 1957 Treaty of Rome, the European Economic Community’s (EEC) founding document. The Netherlands was one of the EEC’s six original members, and the implications of a statement undercutting the principle could inflict damage on the controversial goal of closer integration that is meant to help save the euro. The English-language press communique put out by the Dutch foreign ministry leads with the bombshell and drops the “however”: “The Netherlands is convinced that the time of an ‘ever closer union’ in every possible policy area is behind us.” As the statement reached the press, the qualifier about “in every possible policy area” was largely dropped, too. “Cabinet: no more responsibilities to Brussels," read the headline of Elsevier, a conservative Dutch weekly.

That was clearly a more radical course than the one Mr Timmermans or his prime minister, Mark Rutte, are pursuing. The list of 54 policy areas which the Dutch oppose handing over to the EU is fairly extensive, but it doesn’t rule out further action in areas like banking union and common energy policy, where the Dutch explicitly want more power at the European level. The Dutch say they oppose the EU’s proposed financial transaction tax and the establishment of a “shock-absorption” fund that would spend countercyclically during recessions, but they had already made that clear over the past year. They also oppose, among other things, European control over political party financing, efforts to harmonise taxation or create a common corporate tax base, and, famously, European regulation of how olive oil may be sold or served at restaurants. But at the same time, the Dutch say they are committed to negotiating all of these issues with all 27 EU member states, with no special “opt-outs” for the Netherlands. And they name no areas in which they want established EU powers repatriated to the national level.

Even if the announcement doesn’t really signal a momentous Dutch swing towards euroscepticism, the Netherlands probably isn’t unhappy about having the message appear that way in the foreign media and in the Dutch conservative press. The strong eurosceptic message was enthusiastically received in London, where David Cameron, the prime minister has been leading a campaign to build international support for trimming the EU’s powers since early this year. Britain’s Europe minister, David Lidington, said the government “agree(s) with our Dutch partners on ‘ever closer union’,” and echoed the Dutch formulation: “European where necessary, national where possible.”

Domestically, the appeal to conservative euroscepticism is a necessity for the Dutch government, a coalition between Mr Timmermans’s centre-left Labour party and Mr Rutte’s centre-right Liberals. Mr Timmermans himself is a Europeanist in a long Labour tradition; his six languages include Italian and Russian in addition to the usual Dutch trio of English, French and German. But Mr Rutte’s Liberals have been swept over the past decade by a spirit of resistance against what the Dutch call Brussels’ bemoeizucht, or “thirst for meddling”. Even where Mr Rutte has supported increased EU powers, he has couched those moves as support for a firm hand in Brussels to tame troublesome countries like Greece and Spain, whom most Dutch blame for the euro crisis.

What is momentous about Friday’s announcement isn’t so much the specific policy areas the Dutch list as no-go areas for Brussels. It is rather the way it underlines the Dutch public’s exhaustion with the idea of Europe, the way the apparently never-ending euro crisis has redoubled the right’s resentment of Brussels and enervated the left’s willingness to defend it. A poll by Gallup Europe in early June showed an astounding 39% of the Dutch public in favour of exiting the EU. With the economy shrinking 1.2% in 2012 and another 0.4% in the first quarter this year, and EU budget commissioner Olli Rehn demanding further austerity of nearly 1% of GDP in 2014, the resentment continues to increase. There is an almost palpable desire in the Netherlands to strike out at Brussels, to get something back from a European political and economic order that seems to demand relentless recession and sacrifice in the name of a goal that is no longer clear. Mr Rutte’s 54 points are a stab at giving Dutch voters a bit of the revenge they desire, but they are not likely to be satisfied.