Right wing politician Geert Wilders has withdrawn his party from the ruling Dutch coalition in dispute over a promised crackdown on migration. The move triggered a political crisis which has spelled the end of the Netherlands’ government just shy of a year after it took office under prime minister Dick Schoof.
Schoof has said he will be stepping down as prime minister earlier today and will likely communicate his resignation to King Willem-Alexander in short order.
Schoof described the PVV pull out as “irresponsible and unnecessary” adding,
“As far as I’m concerned, this shouldn’t have happened,”.
Wilders announced the decision to pull the Party of Freedom (PVV) out of the coalition in a message on X after a parliamentary meeting of leaders of the four parties that make up the fractious administration.
“No signature for our asylum plans.No adjustment of the Main Lines Agreement. PVV leaves the coalition.” he wrote.
Professor Jan van der Baek, who has been an outspoken critic of the economic burden asylum seekers and migrants from third world countries have on the Dutch tax payer reacted to the news saying, “All four coalition parties have butter on their heads.
“They promised the voters control over (asylum) migration without the intention of doing anything about current international treaties.”
“Then control over migration is doomed to fail,” he wrote.
Van der Baek added, “The voter who wants less (asylum) migration might be better off with this cabinet fall.”
He said that any political campaigning henceforth “should be about who actually wants to do something about (asylum) migration” and has “the will to tamper with international treaties.”
He added that it is “becoming clear here and in other EU countries that this is necessary for less migration.”
As Gript previously reported, the Netherlands became the first European nation to specifically request an opt-out of EU migration rules.
Last October, Dutch Asylum and Migration Minister, Marjolein Faber, who is a member of Gilders’ Freedom Party, formally notified Brussels that she wanted an opt-out of EU asylum rules.
Among the measures agreed upon were plans to restrict family reunification, cutting the duration of temporary visas, and moving to declare parts of Syria as safe in order to speed up dealing with applications from the country.
However as the coalition now stands on the brink of collapse, local journalist Scarlett Karoleva called the developments surrounding the exit of PVV “a dream come true” for the Brussels establishment parties who she said are “rising in the polls”.
She said that the coalition had failed to come up with a “tougher” approach to migration and asylum in the country.
“Dutch voters were promised the strictest asylum policy and a solid right-wing coalition,” she said, adding that they “got neither”.
“What we did get is more chaos, more promises, and now a collapsed government.” she said.