Ronald Ariës, a retired Dutch airline pilot who was born in the U.S. but grew up with his Dutch parents in the Netherlands, has taken his fight to be allowed to keep his Dutch bank account – without being forced to agree to U.S. demands that he acknowledge what it regards as his American citizenship – to the European Parliament, by filing a petition with its Committee on Petitions (PETI).

Two of the Netherlands' largest banks, ABN AMRO and Rabobank, are also prepared to close the bank accounts of "unintentional Americans" if these individuals "do not cooperate with the U.S. requirements" that they provide tax information numbers, such as a Social Security number, or evidence that they have entered into the U.S. system for relinquishing their citizenships, according to a report published on Friday on the news website NRC.nl.

Ronald Ariës is a 62-year-old Dutch citizen, who is retired from KLM, the Dutch airline. He is one of "dozens" of Dutch citizens who have been told that they "will soon lose their bank accounts" because they are "unintentionally American", but are resisting their banks' insistence that they formalize their American status by getting a Tax Identification Number, so that the banks will be able to comply with the U.S. tax evasion law known as FATCA, according to a report published last week by NRC Handelsblad, a major Dutch media organization, the website of which is NRC.nl.